


Player, Champagne, Showtime.

by heyyuphey



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band), Triple H (Korea Band)
Genre: 365 Fresh, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, also it's rated E because spunk wants to die real good, mentions of past suicide attempts, mentions of self harm, smut begins in chapter 3 yo, so tread lightly if any of these make u feel bad my dudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 21:31:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11322144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyyuphey/pseuds/heyyuphey
Summary: Disgusting things happen every day in this city. Rape and murder, trafficking and thievery - if you may imagine it, so may the businessmen underground.The city is in silent resignation to these crimes. People think of themselves more than they do others and, to them, that's okay.Three people who taste the sour bile of this devilish city's underbelly find each other by a chance too sweet for coincidence, and they run.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [MV] Triple H(트리플 H) _ 365 FRESH](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/303015) by Triple H. 



> i tried to be more forward in my writing w this bit ,, and what a better place to practice than a law-breakin dick wrastlin' triad 
> 
> comments make me so happy ( even when theyre mean ) so pls feel free to leave love/advice/whatev !!!

“You got a name?”

The lidded eyes flicker in surprise at the strange voice; she had nearly forgotten whose car she was in. She _was_ in a car, right? Half-mast eyes lift from the dusty dashboard of the vehicle she’s never seen, moving to behold the profile of a stranger at the wheel. He’s blond, something she doesn’t see very often in the outskirts of such a poor city, and his window is rolled down with the AC blasting. Isn’t he cold with just that shirt on? She hopes he isn’t.

His nose has an ugly looking cut across its bridge, brown bruises blooming beneath his flesh despite the injury's fresh appearance. He's handsome, that's for sure, but Hyuna is numb to his appearance, still operating at only a percentage of her default. His tone is numb, nearly mechanical. His full lips rest against each other loosely and eyebrows are relaxed against his flesh. There is no sign of tension within him. Shouldn't someone who just picked up a stranger be more apathetic?

Lips part to speak. She mumbles something incoherent to even her own ears; the man turns, glancing her direction with a blank, nonjudgmental expression while her babbling fades into silence. Words die between her teeth, her tongue sweeping across the point of her canines, as if unaccustomed to forming words under someone's expectation. The rapid flashing of overhead lights are too distracting. She can’t remember what her mind is shouting for her to say in time to say them. She swallows, her throat dry and burning with bile. She knows if she comes back into herself now, she will vomit. She doesn't want to do that. 

A flash of white to her left pulls her attention from the air’s control panel. A handkerchief is presented to her between the stranger's two fingers, his eyes never leaving their route.

“I’ll call ya’ Red.”

Fingers painted crimson lift up to grasp the gift; it stands in stark contrast to her stained hands, the inky mess beginning to dry into every crease of her flesh. _Red_ , that seems a nice name. Slowly, fingers rediscover their motor capacity, gripping the fabric in a haphazard ball and scrubbing at her flesh. She doesn’t remember what is on her, but she hates its stickiness.

No - no, she knows what it is. She doesn’t want to say it. Ink is holier than what this is. It means the man was made of paper and plaster; he was made to break. That what is in her hair, on her hands, chest, across her legs from crawling across the shop's floor is all meant to be. Her stomach lurches, lips press together to force bile back down her throat.

Concentrating is a laborious task. She scrubs at her hands with stuttering motions, her teeth digging into the fleshy give of her lips, ripping away the chapped film of skin that lays there. The capacity of her mind is too occupied with the street beyond the car to truly focus on what bit of her hand is clean and what is not; eyes flicker to the window, curious as to who may be standing on street corners waiting for her, she watches streetlights fade in the rearview mirror, shivering as the light warps and shapes into vague humanoid figures, presumably angels chasing the vehicle to damn her. Even bushes cause her to flinch as they pass, as they hold those attempting to jump from their cover and punish her. She would no doubt deserve it.

It takes a few pregnant moments for Hyuna to fully exercise her thoughts into a partially coherent sentence.

“‘s Hyuna,” She says, low and garbled by her own lips. She swallows against the burn of her throat, preparing for his abuse or contradiction; the car is silent, her whisper standing between them like an iron wall.

He’s quiet for too long. Hyuna begins to assume he hadn’t heard. She is readying herself to try again, welling up her cheeks with saliva and rubbing the back of her teeth with the tip of her tongue when he finally replies.

“Good to hear you talkin’, Hyuna.”

He seems bored - she assumes he’ll stick to Red.

His voice is deep; deeper than it looks it should be. He’s skinny and pale, his hair bleached unhealthily. He's thin, too, but not thin enough for her to feel compelled to worry; she can see the ripple of his arm's muscles beneath the satin of his shirt as he turns the wheel. He has big hands, his knuckles warped and pinker than the other skin across his fingers. Hyuna stares; is that what happens when you crack them too much? She tells herself it is. The man sees her focus on his scars despite his unwavering gaze and, consequently, shifts his fingers lower on the wheel, dipping them into the shadows and out of sight.

“That’s a decent mess you got on your hands,”

Conversational; that’s all she knows to describe his voice as, his gaze as static as his lips. Hyuna looks down, inspecting her own palms as if she hadn’t noticed; the ink is still there, just smudged into her skin's jagged wrinkles and smeared further down her arms. The handkerchief is stained and she immediately feels a fresh wash of guilt; she promises herself she will wash it before returning it.

“You’re not hurt, are you?”

Her head shakes before she fully digests the question. No, she isn’t hurt, does she seem hurt? Do her hands look funny, maybe a finger sticks out oddly at one of her knuckles? Toes curl in her shoes, she counts each three times. Her elbows twist at her sides and she feels for any residual burn in her shoulders. He clears his throat before continuing, as if he feels suddenly awkward.

“Do you know who’s blood that is?”

… Oh.

 _Oh_.

It’s like drowning. It’s a tsunami crashing down on her; breath catches in her throat and hands ball into fists around the handkerchief. It feels friendly - she tightens her grip until fingers blanch around the corners. The memory of _his_ hand against her thigh makes her flinch; he came upon her so quickly, she hadn’t even the time to think. She said something to him, she knows it, maybe she threatened him? All he did was laugh - he knew there was no one who would hear her howls of pain, her begs for him to stop, there would be no one except her landlord to find her body in the days after it happened. She would long be stiff and cold by then, exposed for the police officers and forensics teams to see. What would her mother, her auntie think? They’d say it was just deserts - her aunt would cry longer than her mama would, she knows that. Dying never scared her, but Hell sure did.

Dying never scared her, but Hell sure did.

Hazel eyes are wide, the gravity of what she has done settling like stones in her belly. The shop door was unlocked; she hadn’t bothered to bring her keys with her or assure for the body’s invisibility in the windows. She just left. She felt his eyes on her as she left and the burn on her back still flares as if he's sitting in the back seat. Opticals shift to the slender visage of her chauffeur, his face as cold as the moment he picked her up.

“Oh, God,” Hyuna breathes, her voice nearly lost in the panic of her sigh. It’s loud, louder than anything she’s said in the car thus far. She hadn’t mentioned anything concrete and yet he seemed to understand. The man purses his lips in thought, Hyuna’s eyes flicker back to her hands, the blood stiff and flaky on her palms. She sobs once, no tears coming to prick her eyes, the handkerchief becoming her lifeline as she picks up scrubbing once again.

“Do you wanna go to the police?” He asks slowly, cautiously. Their gazes meet, and from her expression alone, he knows the answer.

“Alright,” He says, a bit of relief dancing amongst the blankness in his tone. His fingers drum along the pale wheel for a few heartbeats’ time. He seems deep in thought.

“Well, good for me, then,” He mumbles dryly, scratching the back of his head. She is too afraid to ask what he means. Maybe it was a joke?

“‘Kay, uh, Hyuna… You kinda’ caught me in a weird moment,” He continues. “Listen, I don’t wanna scare ‘ya or nothin’, but-”

_Skrrrrrt._

_Boom._

_“Fuck!”_

The hands which got her in this mess clutch at her head, dropping the fabric into her lap as her knees come to her chin in defense. The car suddenly comes to a sloppy stop, tires spinning out and screeching against the pavement. Her palms are squashed against her ears in a childish maneuver to block sound, her already trembling hands twitching in anxiety.

The stranger flies out of the car faster than she can comprehend - which, fairly, isn’t very fast - and stalks off to something piled in the middle of the street, hands balled into fists. She watches with wide eyes, only comprehending his target during his attack.

It’s another man, his hair bleached an equally light blonde as her chauffeur's. Shaking fingers struggle to unlock her door and shove it open; she kicks it away with haste and runs to the stranger’s side. _No more violence._

Her hands make no difference to his blind rage. Fingers wrap about his bicep to yank him off only for them to be roughly shoved away. She staggers back, eyebrows knit together as he turns to her, his face twisted in rage. She rubbed a light fleck of blood on his arm. He doesn’t notice.

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?!” He shouts. He’s too loud. Her shoulders flinch. “Don’t any of you give a flying fuck about anyone but yourselves?! Do you realize that cars go on fucking roads?! Christ, selfish _motherfuckers_! I should leave you both here, you’re fucking _perfect_ for each other!”

Hyuna can feel her eyes crinkle under his scorn; her arms cross uncomfortably, toes wiggling in her shoes. An odd gargle catches her friend’s attention; She believes it’s just her imagination when chortling giggles burst from someone’s lips. There is no humor between the two; both look to the newcomer, his teeth coated in blood. 

He's a mess already. He's pale as if he were already dead, his lip split in the furthest corner of his mouth and teeth are coated in blood. The sight makes Hyuna squirm uncomfortably. His eyes are shut and he's laughing as if he pulled the prank of the fuckin' century.

“Something fucking _funny_?” Blue-shirt asks, his fingers flexing to ready for another hit.

There’s no lucid reply - he’s high, or insane, or both. He laughs from his belly, the kind of laughter that makes you cry, and he does. Tears stream down his temples, his arms laid out straight to his sides as if he were skydiving. Hyuna watches, she can’t not - she holds her breath, and her new friend’s arm recoils for the inevitable punch. She cringes. The sound his jaw makes against his knuckles is nauseating.

And still, with her chauffeur's help, he manages to stand, his posture dragged upwards by the scornful hand on his elbow. He runs down the street in curved, drunken, staggering motions; he spins, his arms out, screaming incoherent nonsense to the open air.

Hyuna and her friend exchange a gaze, watching him shrink in the distance. Eventually, he cusses under his breath, heading back for his car.

Her seatbelt is the first thing Hyuna attends to upon re-entering the car; tonight seems to be the night of chaos, and she refuses to be a casualty. Laying on the horn, the stranger trails the drunkard for meters, shouting out of her rolled-down window for him to _get the fuck in_. The drunkard laughs harder every time he honks. He trips over his own feet every few steps, sometimes doing so to such a degree that he is forced to catch himself against the sidewalk and right himself again.

Hyuna looks to her driver curiously, licking her lips, the warmth of her humanity slowly creeping back within her despite the night’s tragedy.

“What’re you doin’?” She asks quietly.

His gaze flickers to her face momentarily. He seems surprised that she's speaking, but he focuses back to his target. He sighs, seemingly annoyed at the universe. Hyuna doesn't blame him.

“If we leave him out here like this, he could give info to the police ‘bout both of us,” He says through clenched teeth, as if speaking about such a thing is physically painful. "If we wanna keep our little excursion quiet, we gotta make sure the piggy don't squeal."

His grip on the steering wheel threatens to warp the perfect circle; he gives Hyuna an exasperated look in a silent plea for help.

That is enough reason for her. She turns, leaning out the window as far as she can, hesitating in the motion, before clearing her throat and shouting.

“Hey!”

As if on cue, the hoodlum turns his head to her voice - she smiles. This is further than her friend _ever_ got!

“Get in! Yer’ gonna catch yer’ death out there.”

Sluggish footsteps slow to a stop and the car follows. He sways, a pale tongue wetting thin lips. He seems to mull this over for a long moment; his eyes are half-mast and dilated beyond sobriety's limit, bloodshot and red-rimmed. Hyuna smiles hopefully, and it feels awkward.

After a few moments deliberation, he spits on the sidewalk. It's red. The inebriated man climbs into the back seat.

“Where we goin’, baby?” He murmurs. His voice is like gravel and Hyuna is pretty sure he got some of his blood on her ear. His breath tickles the hair laying on the back of her neck; Hyuna smiles in tense politeness, but is off put by his breath’s lack of a boozy smell; Blue-shirt’s hand comes roughly to his chest, shoving him back into the seat. With the wrath of an annoyed soccer dad, he shoves his index finger between drunky’s eyes, his glare enough to put the fear of God into any sinner.

“Listen to me and listen hard," He begins, his jaw clenched so tight that Hyuna can hear his teeth squeaking together. "I swear to God, Brainless. No fuckin’ funny business. You sit there ‘nd sober up, calm down, do whatever the fuck you needa’ do to act like a normal fuckin’ person,”

Hyuna can see a smirk creeping onto the expression of their new companion; it doesn’t challenge his offender, but rather implies genuine humor in the moment. Her lips press together to avoid smiling herself - it was damn infectious.

“Any stupid shit and I leave ya’ on the nearest highway. Got it?”

“ _Aye_ ,” The stranger nods with a jerk of his chin, his tongue prodding at the new injury his savior bestowed.

Satisfied, satin-man slumps back into his seat. The car slides back into drive, and with that, they carry on in heated silence.

 

~

 

The tickle of her hair being toyed with rouses Hyuna from her doze; it was the dreamless, floating darkness she had hoped for. She squints out beyond the dashboard, an involuntary sigh wracking her frame as she withholds the highway void of cars beyond them. The sun is shining in a clear sky; it's not quite the weather she expected to see after murdering a man, but she'll absolutely take it.

Her hair is tugged again. It's painless but definitely a cry for attention. Hyuna looks over her shoulder lazily, one eyebrow lifted. Surely enough, the inebriated man-child is caught twirling a lock of red frizz between his fingers, his expression cold despite being found out. The corners of his mouth twitch into a small smile upon their gazes meeting. She sleepily returns it - he’s got a nice smile, it stands in awkward contrast to the chill of his eyes. She wants to see more of it.

“What time ‘s it?” Hyuna asks the driver, her voice crackly and coated in sleep. The flat of her fingers come to rub at her eyes. She flinches, returning said hands to her lap. She forgot. About the stains.

“Almost eight,” Replies satin-man.

“Mm,” She leans back against the window. Drunky can play with her hair all he wants.

“We needa’ stop for gas soon… I think I gotta’ couple of 500s on me,”

“M-hm,”

“Get food if you got the money n’ pee while we’re there.”

“Mmmm,”

“What’s your name?”

Eyebrows lift to force lids to follow the unfamiliar voice in the backseat. Hyuna meets his gaze in the rearview mirror; his face is as blank as his tone, and she is unsure of what to make of such a curious question from an uninspiring man.

“Hyuna,” She replies, slightly awkward. “You?”

“Uh, E’Dawn.”

“Hell no,” Satin-man scowls. Hyuna feels a grin spread across her face in delight. “There’s no way in hell I’m calling you a middle-school rap name like E’Dawn.”

E’Dawn shrugs, unfazed by the ails of his chauffeur.

“Give us another name or we’ll make one for you.”

“C’mon, there’s gotta’ be something more notable than that,” Hyuna adds, openly cackling in amusement.

E’Dawn frowns, eyebrows raised and he shrugs again. Hyuna looks to blue-shirt, shrugging in an echo of their passenger.

“He wants to be E’Dawn.”

“Christ,” He mumbles, shaking his head. “We’ll get a nickname for him. I gave you Red, you can think of Brainless’ name.”

 _Ooh_. Hyuna takes this seriously, perhaps too much so. She shifts in her seat, turning completely with legs crossed and hands in her lap. She leans dramatically towards their passanger. She faces E’Dawn without shame or embarrassment, and brainstorms; he stares at her just as openly she does him, their faces blank, hers pinched slightly in pure concentration. His eyes dance about her features and she ignores the stir in her belly. Eyebrows knit together; and after a moment, and eventually, she has it.

“Spunk.”

“Spunk?” E’Dawn’s eyebrows raise. Satin-man snorts.

“You look like a Spunk.”

“You realize spunk is another word for cum, right?”

“Don’t care.”

“You’re naming me after cum?”

“Yes.”

“It’s official,” Satin-man smiles, tone too stodgy for the joke. E’Dawn glances at his profile blankly, before humorlessly turning to look out the window.

Hyuna situates herself properly in her seat once more, satisfied. She earns herself a sideways glance by blue-shirt. The aura of the car already feels lighter.

“You never told me your name last night, either,” Hyuna reminds him. His eyebrows raise, too.

“Oh. Didn’t I? Uh, sorry,” He lifts his hands from the wheel to briefly crack his knuckles. They must ache from the way he laid into Spunk. “It’s Hwitaek.”

“Hwitaek,” Hyuna repeats, allowing the name to roll around her mouth.

“Mm,”

Silence. Hwitaek is too proud and Hyuna is too nervous to turn on the radio. The police may have already found the body and she doesn't want to know what condition he was in. She can hear Spunk sprawl out comfortably in the backseat, his yawn too loud for the small car. She shifts in her seat.

“Thank you,”

Hwitaek glances at her again, hesitating as if he misheard. “Hm?”

“For picking me up last night.”

“Oh,”

“To be honest, I don’t remember getting in your car, but I think I’m glad I did,”

Fingers busy themselves picking the dried blood from her cuticles. Her hands are beginning to itch with the feeling of her victim - the rest stop can’t come faster.

“Oh.” He repeats dumbly. He blinks, a bit uncomfortable. “Well… that’s good.”

Hyuna nods; it is good. She assumed the worst of such a man after her consciousness fully settled back into her body - with scars and clothes like that, he could be anyone. And he probably was, with the route he was taking. This highway was barely used by anyone these days. She was unsure of where they were going and she assumed he hadn’t a clue either. All of them were on the run, and Hyuna wasn’t sure she wanted to know the details.

But, of course… it would be nice.

Her mouth opens to ask for Spunk’s story - he seems the right one to start with, more willing to speak when spoken to, especially when speaking to Hyuna - but Hwitaek interrupts her.

“Here we are,” He mumbles in relief. They pull off the highway, down the paved detour and into the most run-down gas station she’s ever seen. Hwitaek and Hyuna both emerge from the vehicle, Spunk only rolling down his window and hanging out of it. The place is so barren that, despite her bloodiness, Hyuna isn't nervous at all. The machines are all automated, sucking up money like sluts and spitting out gas to whoever needs it. She doubts anyone's worked here for weeks.

“D’you smoke?” Spunk asks dryly. It takes Hyuna a moment to realize he’s speaking to her; she pats her pockets, tongue caught between her teeth.

“I do… ‘guess I left my pack at the shop,” She says, her tone dipping into disappointment. It’s not a problem if she doesn’t make it one, she’s no routine smoker; but it sure would be nice to have on her, especially to make peace with these men she’s now stuck with.

Spunk’s eyebrows lift slowly - a smirk crawls across his face. Hyuna stares, confused.

“Cute,” He mumbles. “But I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout tobacco, baby.”  

Hyuna doesn’t move, eyebrows knit together slowly. They stare at each other while Hwitaek busies himself in the front seat, digging for something below the steering wheel. Eventually, Spunk enlightens her, holding his thumb and index in front of his lips in a phantom joint.

“Oh!”

Spunk smirks again. Hyuna stares. His smile really is nice.

The car pops. Both of them looks to Hwitaek. He’s too busy to notice their gaze; his expression is riddled with irritation and he glances up to Hyuna hopefully.

“Did I pop the gas canister? Check for me,”

Hyuna steps to the side - it’s still shut.

“No?”

“What did I… ah, is the trunk open?”

The trunk’s hood is angled funny; she nods, confused. Does he not know how to open his own car’s canister?

Hyuna has never been a proud woman; her nosiness was a side effect of years in the dark, and it’s because of this that she makes her way shamelessly around the side of the car and towards the trunk. She deserved to know what her chauffeur carries with him across country, right?

Hwitaek shuffles around, still busy with figuring out his own vehicle, his ass stuck out for the road to see. Hyuna takes a generous view of it, ignoring Spunk obviously watching her.

Eventually, she allows her fingers to creep along the hood, prying it open and revealing its contents. Hazel eyes widen - she hesitates, her reflex being to dive into the bag and check for legitimacy. _Is this shit real?_

Spunk’s head tilts to the side in attempt to see her entire expression. She meets his gaze above the trunk’s lip; he still looks bored, but there’s a shift in his eyes, perhaps stemming from hers. Without speaking, he opens the door, clambering out with leisure and walking to her side.

More out of curiosity than anything, Hyuna watches his expression as he approaches. There is no flicker of surprise, no panic, nothing. He stares for a moment, then reaches forward, his thumb fluttering among the edge of a block of cash, perhaps checking its validity.

A duffel bag full, _beyond_ full of cash. It’s overflowing, 50,000 won notes splattering across the trunk. There’s no blue dye like the movies and no AK-47s to accompany the crime. Spunk’s hand lifts from the money, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, fuck,” He mumbles, finally sounding mystified. He seems nearly impressed, as if he underestimated the balls of their chauffeur. Hyuna can only nod in agreement.

Who the _hell_ is Hwitaek?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> little note: hyojong's first words are reference to The Road by jamjoon on this lovely website - i'm fuckin obsessed w all of her works n she's fucking amazing, if ur looking for more Triple H stories then head her way. her writing n characterization is A+


	2. Chapter 2

The sound of the soap’s pump whining against Hyuna’s fingers becomes blurry white noise. Suds turn from brown to orange to white against her skin; still, hands busy themselves, fingernails digging into flesh to rid of every cell of the body abandoned in her shop. Hyuna’s hands are now an angry red, skin beginning to bloom with broken blood vessels in the wake of her nubby and bitten nails. The foamy soap is running dry, she can tell; it sputters and wheezes with every desperate push of her palm. She doesn’t care. She pushes on the small lever until her fingers overflow with it.

She’s void of the blood’s splatters; her legs and chest are stainless, even her hands are pristine. She looks the same as her partners now, no longer carrying what was abandoned in the city. Still, she scrubs, her flesh beginning to ball up and roll off of her as if it were dead. It burns with the feeling of a necessary evil.

Just moments prior, Hwitaek had rounded the side of the car which they stood, sensing some kind of turbulence by his partners’ silence. His eyebrows shot towards his hairline as he withheld the money in front of him. He was silent, almost as if he was just as surprised as the both of them were. Hyuna flinched as he picked up a stack of bills, flipping through them and smiling like a kid on Christmas. Something was off-kilter with the way he mumbled “ _hot damn_ ,” into the bundle, holding it under his nose and breathing deeply. She was sure Spunk picked up on it, too.

“Mind explainin’?” Spunk asked.

“Wish I could,” Hwitaek said casually, dropping the money back into the pile, only before mumbling under his breath, “Guess those bitches had more to ‘em than I thought,”

“This ain’t your car?” Hyuna asked, her crossed arms tightening.

Hwitaek shakes his head, lips pressed together. He acts as though it’s normal.

“N’ I’m guessin’ they weren’t friends of yours,” Spunk says. It’s not a question and the silence says more than either of them could. Hwitaek shrugs casually, lips turned down at the corners. All Spunk could do is laugh once dryly, his head shaking as if he isn’t surprised, either. Hyuna swallowed against the dryness in her throat. Just another thing for the cops to chase us for.

Both of them see the anxiety on her face and tell her that it doesn’t matter. Hwitaek said the bills are legit and they give us a hand up on the police; besides, who’d report a car missing when it had a trunk full of stolen or laundered cash? Spunk says we had the whole countryside, if not the world, in the palm of our hand. We could go anywhere we wanted; with a smirk, Spunk bumps his shoulder with hers, mumbling a low “ _Wanna see Vegas, baby_?”

Yes, of course she did.

The door of the dingy bathroom opening barely registers in her stuffy head; she glances in the mirror, meeting cold eyes in a stoic face. Hyuna decides that if Spunk was a doll, he’d be the type with big baby blues and tears painted on his cheek. But his cold expression is oddly handsome, even accompanied with a split lip and black eye. She looks away, back to her handiwork; Her memory does not do justice on the tangibility of his gaze, she can feel those dark eyes running up her spine. She briefly remembers locking the door. With all he did last night, she’s not surprised he can pick locks with phantom objects. For a long moment they are silent.

“What’re you doing?” He finally asks.

The tense muscles in Hyuna’s forehead are beginning to give her a headache. She ignores it.

“Washing up,” She says. It’s supposed to sound casual. Her voice strains against her muscle’s fatigue.

“Mm,” He nods slowly. They’re quiet for a while, only listening to the papery sound of her skin rubbing against itself underneath the steaming tap.

Eventually, her elbows come to rest against the porcelain of the sink. She’s exhausted herself; she spares another look at him in the mirror as she twists the tap shut. Spunk leans against the wall, hands in his pockets, watching her.

“You look better,” He says. It sounds just as awkward as it does genuine. She only assumes that he means her bloodless state - she gives him a curt smile.

“I feel better,” She says.

The company is wonderful, but Hyuna can’t help the simmer of irritation in her belly at his presence. There’s a moment of silence before she adds, “You don’t have to babysit me, you know. I’m grown.”

“Yeah,” He says, unmoving and seemingly bored.

Hyuna stares, blinking at the nerve of him. She gives him a few moments of quiet before continuing. “Yer’ not very good at picking up hints,"

“I know,”

Her gaze stiffens, a scowl pulling at a corner of her lip. He shrugs.

“It’s been twenty minutes. The tank ‘s full; we’re waiting on you,” He pushes from the wall, casually making his way towards the door as her irritation shifts to heavy guilt. She purses her lips as he slowly makes his way to the door. “‘N while I could watch you scrub yourself raw all day, we got places to be.”

“Like where?” Hyuna faces him properly, challenging him with a glare over her shoulder.

“ _Places_ , baby.”

His tone is promising despite both of them knowing that they are running to nowhere in particular. No one has dared ask Hwitaek if he had a place in mind - everyone seems to know that he doesn’t, or is too afraid to make such heard. Spunk covers his hand with his sleeve before opening the bathroom’s door. Hyuna is surprised at such a conscious move for hygiene’s sake, but then again, she can only assume the morality of him. Drugs don’t exactly equate filth. They’re still, staring at each other for a few heavy moments in stalemate. Eventually, Hyuna backs away from the sink, walking shamefully from the bathroom with him in tow. Her hands still carry the heat from the water outside.

He’s right; Hwitaek is sitting in the started car, a small stack of cash sitting on his lap. He sees them coming and revs the engine - neither of them quicken their pace. Hyuna climbs in the front seat and Spunk sprawls across the back. It begins to feel routine. Hyuna eyes the money, gaze heavy with suspicion and nerves.

“Why’s it out?” She asks carefully.

“Don’t look so damn scared,” Hwitaek mumbles, hands coaxing the wheel to pull out from the gas station and loop back to the highway. “You act like I fuckin’ killed someone for this car or somethin’. I di’nt even know about the damn money,”

“Did you?” Spunk asks. He’s doing his version of smiling.

“No,” Hwitaek replies humorlessly. He mumbles something below his breath; Hyuna fidgets, her fingers burning further with each beat of her heart.

It’s quiet and the atmosphere is heavy. Hyuna squirms in her seat, wondering about who else has sat where she has, in this very car. Maybe someone important or struggling to make ends meet. Other people’s poverty has never been high on her list of struggles to be conscientious of, as she was always battling with her own. Thinking of monetary troubles brings the image of her aunty into her mind’s eye - she flinches, brushing it away like a dust bunny.

Hwitaek breaks the ugly silence, Spunk’s head lolling forward to see his eyes through the rearview.

“You know, I was thinkin’ about what we could do with all this dough, and…”

He clears his throat, seemingly tasting the tension in the air. “I mean, we got enough for a plane ride anywhere we want, right? ‘Nd we should consider takin’ advantage of that if we _really_ wanna run for good,”

He pauses, his lips pressed in a fine line. Hyuna finally looks to him in silent beckon to continue.

“But in the meantime… we’re near Seoul, right?” Hwitaek asks, turning to his copilot. She stares blankly in response to his rhetorical question - she has no idea where they are. Spunk’s lips quirk into a lopsided smile.

“Well, okay, we are,” Hwitaek hurriedly faces the road again, his voice dripping with awkwardness. Hyuna thinks that despite his scars he might be a bit shy. “‘Nd I figured we might as well blow a bit of cash on some fun,”

Hwitaek shrugs to maintain his casuality. Hyuna sees Spunk perk up in the rearview.

“Y’know, go t’ some bars, fuck up a couple shopping centers… get real stupid as a last hoorah.”

It’s quiet for a few moments as everyone considers this. Hyuna bites the dead skin on her chapped lips. She’s never said no to shopping and karaoke bars before…

“Damn,” Spunk mumbles, breaking the silence with fist coming from the back seat to mock-punch him in the shoulder. “Here I was, thinkin’ you were all stiff.”

Hwitaek rolls his eyes. Instead, he glances to Hyuna.

“What’d’ya think, Red?”

She’s grinning before he can finish the question; it’s genuine, big, her teeth pushing past plump lips.

“If there’s one thing you needa’ know ‘bout me, it’s that I’m _always_ down to get stupid, Hui,”

Her hands grab the money from his lap, feeling the hefty weight of it; she decides that the body in her shop can’t make her hurt any more than she lets it, even just for now. The money in their trunk must be there for a reason, right? God, or some shit. It’s their lifeline, the tank of oxygen they drag to keep their awkward, impulsive and sloppy adventure alive. She sighs a happy little sound, pressing the stack close in a loud, dramatic kiss, gripping it so hard that her knuckles go white. She leaves a faint smudge of red behind, the bill taking most of her remaining lipstick with it.

Hwitaek spares a glance in her direction. After the rather tense drive from wherever she came from, it was relieving to see her relax; at least now she had something to look forward to. However, he is taken aback by the color of her hands. He double takes, eyes widening, and he almost reaches forward to grasp her fingers in his. He doubts he could soothe the hurt they bring, but at least he’d know what the fuck happened, maybe stop somewhere to get first aid. Had this happened back… wherever she was, and he was just now noticing it? True to his recent history, Hwitaek manages a poker face as he weighs his options. He considers mentioning it, and nearly does; Spunk catches his gaze in the rearview, however, and his eyes are knowing. Spunk sucks his cheek between his teeth, chewing on the feeble flesh, his head twitching in a subtle shake. Hwitaek remains quiet, his lips pressing in a fine line, allowing her to bask in their new plan for the time being.

Instead, he focuses his newly endowed nickname, and tries not to smile at its childishness.

The road stretches before them endlessly - at least, that’s how it seems. Hwitaek is tireless, ignoring every concern or complaint by his passengers. They seem to bitch about anything, including his health and reliability. Hwitaek thinks of his brothers while they gripe; how they’d laugh at them and tease about his stubbornness. These two have no idea about the hours spent behind the wheel with a car full of gangsters and criminals, whiskey bottles being passed around and fingers digging into Hwitaek’s ribs, sides, pinching his cheeks until his vision is blurry with tears. About the times he’s sped through red lights and woven through rush hour traffic while blood dripped into his carpeted interior from people who made it and people who didn’t. Times he’s driven blind drunk to funerals, memorials, meetings, or times he’s had one hand on the wheel and the other hand teasing a lover or stroking the back of their head while they blow him. Times he's accepted opioids like candy, his fingers still wet with the other’s lust. 

No, they needn’t worry, and he doubts he knows how much so. Hwitaek is sure he can drive through anything.

Instead of conversation, he finally succumbs to the silence and turns on the radio; all they get are American oldies this far out. Surprisingly, Spunk knows some of the songs, eyes closed and head back as he lipsyncs the lyrics with fluent accuracy. He looks real comfortable back there, laying flat with his hands behind his head, lips slipping along pronunciations as if he were a master of the language. Hwitaek makes a note to ask him about his English; it could come in handy.

They stay like this for hours. It’s a comfortable kind of silence - something Hwitaek doesn’t come by often. Hyuna dozes on and off, her forehead against the glass and lips parted. She looks young when she sleeps. In the backseat is the hum of Spunk’s quiet singing; it’s so gentle and soothing, no wonder Hyuna goes under so fast. He can really carry a tune if he tries; Hwitaek withholds from snorting. He assumes he’ll die before he sees Spunk try for anything that isn’t drug or pussy related.

Eventually, the city skyline peeks up from the orange-tinted smog and is enough to rouse Hwitaek from his own thoughts. It’s beautiful, much more beautiful now than it has been on his past visits; perhaps it’s because somewhere deep down, he knows he may never see it again. Hyuna stirs beside him; he glances to her, unaware of her consciousness. Her now-pink lips parted, eyes wide… Hwitaek gnaws on the inside of his lips, pushing all his attention back onto the road.

God. She’s beautiful.

 

~

 

The sunburn across her nose does little to deter her from dancing on tables. Hyuna grins; hidden dimples pop into her cheeks, her arms above her head as she sways to the beat of the club’s music. She’s been in a good mood all afternoon. New clothes and a fresh tube of red lipstick are apparently the key to her heart. Hwitaek leans back in his chair, taking a drink from whatever boozy thing the bartender handed him and watches with a drunken smirk. It’s got no sugar and burns going down - he’ll take it.

Somewhere in the bar, Spunk shoves a fresh baggie full of weed in his pants with one hand and lights his freshly rolled joint with the other. He bounces awkwardly to the music in the crowd, more focussed on creating an even burn than dancing. His gaze flickers from the joint to Hyuna as he watches her hips do that thing both the boys love, and eventually, she spots him in the crowd. He waves back when she flashes him with that grin. The new tie-dyed Led Zeppelin shirt she found in the thrift shop hangs above an ugly jean skirt that only she can make fashionable. Spunk took an oversized cowprint jacket and Hwitaek pretends to be surprised at his fashion choices.

Hyuna’s hands find themselves latched onto the clean black of Hwitaek's new leather coat as she pulls on his arm, her cheeks pink and pigtails dishevelled. She’s hopped from the table and is now dragging him this way and that, towards blue lights and music that makes his chest vibrate. His body moves before his brain can comprehend - he’s standing in the middle of the floor and is dancing with her, his leather jacket’s zipper catching on other people’s limbs. Somewhere along the way, Spunk joins them. None of them can dance, but they don’t care, they do it anyway; the alcohol is a wonderful catalyst for it. Eventually, Hyuna grins wider, hands on Hwitaek’s chest, accelerating his already unstable heartbeat as her fingers yank on the fabric. She manages to pull him by the shirt to the bathroom.

Oh, it’s nice in there - he hadn’t realized how hot it was on the dancefloor. In the air conditioning, Hwitaek can feel the full force of the booze hitting him. The room is washed in crimson by tinted light bulbs and is about as spaceous as the car. Attempting to stay out of the way of other bar goers, Hyuna shoves him into a stall, giggling at his silent battle with gravity to stay upright. Leaning against the wall of a stall, Hyuna joins him, fanning him with her hand. It feels nice for more reason than one.

“Y’look like yer’ dyin’, honey,” She slurs. The booze has abused her throat, dragging her voice down into huskiness. Hwitaek smirks.

“I ain’t never gonna die,” He replies. It’s a low mumble and much too slow, his head lolling forward. He’s _fucked._

“Don’t talk stupid,” She laughs. There’s those dimples, again. She leans against the far wall, giving him as much space as possible to cool down. Neither of them are sober enough to think about taking off his jacket.

The air conditioner's fans feel good on his neck; she’s right, he’s covered in sweat, probably slick with it. His shirt is soaked through on his neck and it might look ugly to anyone on the outside; still, Hyuna giggles without reason, his flushed skin darkening further under the red lights. His head pulls back to lean against the wall and he stares at Hyuna. Her eyes are closed, chin down against her shoulder and arms at her sides. She’s completely relaxed, at ease. Hwitaek wonders if he has ever felt like this in his entire life.

Hwitaek could slap himself. He should. It’s not like he’s in love with the girl or anything. How could he be? He’s known her for 24 hours - less than, probably - and somehow she’s got this air about her that makes him dizzy. Her smile is bright and loud and even her anxiety makes him feel different; not in a way he could curl up with, but different still. Maybe it’s because he’s seen so many bits of her - the panicking bit, the sleepy bit, the excited bit, and now the drunk bit. All of these sides of her that he collects like paper stars; he licks his lips. They taste salty. He bets she tastes like cinnamon.

He isn’t sure why, but after a long moment’s silence, Hwitaek moves. He’s suddenly descending upon her, leaning down to give her a kiss. It’s slow; he’s too drunk to move quickly and maneuver above the toilet. He wants to know what that new lipstick tastes like, what her tongue does when it’s closed behind those pretty lips. Immediately, he’s winded by the arm that blocks his way.

Hyuna shoves him against the wall as gingerly as she can, face as blank as Spunk’s, and she carefully makes her way out of the stall. The bathroom door closes heavily behind her, a huge gust of hot air taking her place. All Hwitaek is left with is his own breathing.

The silence is sobering. His fingers flex into involuntary fists, wringing tension and sweat from glossy skin. He's drunk - how long had it been since he had truly been drunk? He's accustomed to passing around a bottle of cognac and drinking it like it was Sprite. He's damn well surprised his liver didn’t abandon house a long ass time ago; and here he is, drunk in Seoul, fawning over some woman he hadn’t even known for a full goddamn day.

What was it about her that fucked him up so bad? It didn’t feel like a crush - there were no butterflies in his belly or a lack of things to say. Rather, he felt like his chest had a new weight on it, a meaningful one. He felt his pulse in his neck for the first time outside of a hostage negotiation. He was fuckin’ rolling in dough, tossing around 50,000 won bills like they were nothing, and still, the biggest rush came from those eyes, that smile.

_I’m losing my shit._

With a scoff, he pushes off of the wall and faces himself in the mirror. His reflection is flushed and shiny. He splashes his face with cold water, rubbing it into his skin to try and clamor to sobriety.

Alright, maybe he’s got some kind of paternal instinct to protect her or something. He considers this as wet fingers drip noiselessly into the drum of the sink. Hwitaek doesn’t know women - he never has. He’s has always been closer to men.

He’s had sex with plenty of women, but only because they were gifts from his brothers, and his relationships never took off the way he’s seen in the movies. Women are just so complex - that’s what he says to himself. They want too much and think too little. And they talk a lot. But, so does Hyuna, and still he finds himself enamored by everything she says. He can’t tell if Hyuna is like anyone he’s met before. She can’t be if he makes him this crazy. But with all that he’s seen of her, she’s still considered a stranger. Why does that make his guts twist so bad?

Hwitaek abandons the bathroom with a click of his tongue. The music is louder than he remembered it; it’s no longer diluted by the boozy sway of drunken fun and the cottony feeling in his ears. He heads for his table and sits down. Hyuna is no longer dancing above him with that smile and those hips; he’s disinterested in what else this club has to offer. Maybe he’s pouting and maybe he’s drunk. Fuck it. His fingers around the glass, Hwitaek turns his glass over above the hardwood floor, effectively dumping the remnants of his drink onto it. He ignores the dirty looks from clubbers and employees alike - he’ll leave a tip or somethin’ to keep pissy maintenance workers from hunting him down and charging him, but since they were already hired to clean the place, he figures they might as well make good on it.

He can see Spunk and Hyuna from here; they’re on the dance floor again. Her ass is pressed to his groin as they sway offbeat from whatever techno-garbage was currently on display, and she’s smiling. Not big enough to push those dimples out, but smiling still. One of Spunk’s hands rests on the flat plane of her stomach in attempt to pull her closer, and the other holds a joint, carefully angled as to not burn her. Hwitaek stares long enough to catch those blank eyes, the bruise along his bags complementing his whole “dead inside” aesthetic wonderfully. Despite Hwitaek's internal war over whether to smile or flip him off, their gazes do not break, almost as if magnetically attracted to one another. Hwitaek watches, static despite his irritation, as Spunk’s fingers lift to his lips and his cheeks hollow around the roach, making the cherry resting at the end of white paper glow. Its light bounces off of Hyuna’s back, her frizzy pigtails. After a few moments, the ember on his joint fades, his head tilts back, and smoke flitters from his lips in a wonderful cloud, only for him to inhale sharply through his teeth, completely recapturing the opaque fog.

Hwitaek’s jeans get a little tighter. The booze is making him stupid.

With too much patience, Hwitaek waits in the booth for them to finish their fun. They stagger to him hand-in-hand after they’ve exhausted themselves and are ready for the walk to their motel. Hwitaek nods wordlessly and leads the way. They weave through the current of bodies and find the door, each of them basking in fresh air. It’s barely cooler than that of the bar but the omitted musk of cologne, perfume, hairspray and spilled beer is refreshing. Hands in his pockets, Hwitaek ignores the drunken giggles behind him. He doesn't want to know what stupid thing Spunk is doing to make her smile while he lacks so badly with her. He only lasts a few moments in his silence, however, as delicate hand comes to his shoulder. Hyuna’s fingers smooth across the leather of his jacket and rest along side of his neck. Her touch is hot and sweaty - he doesn’t mind.

“Hui, honey, did I hurt yer’ feelin’s?” Hyuna slurs, eyebrows pressed together and eyes glossy. Her lips are pushed out in a pout that he can’t help but find it adorable. Hwitaek glances at her and shakes his head. She probably wouldn’t accept a genuine answer if he gave her one.

“Aw, c’mon, baby. Ain’t nothin’ personal! I jus’ don’t want’cha to do nothin’ you’d regret sober,” She explains, nuzzling into his shoulder and making their walk more difficult. Her cheeks are soft and nearly as hot as her fingers. Hwitaek feels the corners of his lips twitch in betrayal.

“It’s fine,” He says. His voice is hoarse from the alcohol but he puts effort into placing genuine emotion there. He can hear Spunk snort behind him.

It seems to satisfy Hyuna, at least enough to back away from him. He can’t see the stubborn purse of her lips intensifying or the falling hair in her face - he’s too stoic to look back. The spot she once was is cold under the coming wind.

The motel Hwitaek booked is as cheap as they come - they all agreed to spend as little money as possible on living expenses to keep their profile low, but he doubts that his partners are too happy about it. Hwitaek is going to make a habit of checking for bedbugs when he’s sober. All he knows is it’s got a coffee machine and a TV with (mostly) clear channels and a stocked minibar. To him, they’ve reached the jackpot.

Hwitaek opens the motel door he parked in front of prior to clubbing; he allowed the others to go ahead of him to limit the complaints he'd have to deal with while attempting to get fucked up. Hyuna had already made her share of snarky comments about the building’s shabbiness, but the inside was rather livable. A loveseat and armchair, mini fridge and hot water for tea and showers, a bathtub in the bathroom… and one, queen-sized bed.

Spunk blinks at that last bit, but says nothing. Hyuna flops on it face-down, not noticing the awkwardness and instead makes an effort to take up the entire mattress. She groans at the comfort of it (which wouldn’t be so if she were sober), gradually sinking into the comforter. It’s white - Hwitaek scowls at the thought of her lipstick smearing across it. Spunk’s knee sinks into the mattress as he towers above her, playfully smacking her arm.

“You really gonna’ sleep in all yer’ clothes, baby?” He coos with a smirk. Hwitaek feels his chest tighten, but says nothing.

“Mm,” Is all Hyuna says. Spunk shakes her, his hand flat on her back. She groans loudly in protest.

“Yer’ gonna thank me tomorrow,” He murmurs. His hands run up her shirt, fingers working the clasps of her bra. Hwitaek is surprised at the motion’s lack of sexual intent. Instead, she squeals, writhing against his hands.

“Fuck, man! D’ya live in the goddamn antarctic or somethin’?!”

“Sorry, baby,” He says, not sounding a bit apologetic. He’s still smiling despite her complaints; He takes his time smoothing his hands back down her back once she’s free of the devilish article of clothing, tossing her black bra to the coffee table for her to find upon waking. She groans with half the vigor, more humming at the sensation, her hands wedging beneath her pillow as she relaxes under his touch.

Spunk catches Hwitaek staring. They hold each other’s eyes and Hwitaek is unsure what to make of it. Instead of making it into some odd fight for dominance, Hwitaek drops his gaze, moving to turn the TV on. It effectively breaks the silence; Most of the channels are static but he settles into the loveseat anyway. His chin rests in his palm as he skips and re-skips channels he knows won’t come in. The soothing sighs of contentment from Hyuna fade. Hwitaek can see Spunk move to sit on the mattress' edge beside her in his periphery, his fingertips rubbing soothing circles on her back. Eventually, the room is silent.

Spunk comes from the mattress with a rough squeak. Hwitaek watches him take the armchair, tossing the baggie of pot onto the top of the TV. He can smell it from where he sits; he doesn't bother asking where it came from.

“You partake?” Spunk asks, after minutes of static-y silence, a fresh pack of cigarette papers coming from his front pocket.

Hwitaek hesitates. “I prefer drinking,”

“Mm,” Spunk hums. He rolls his joint with practiced precision. Hwitaek watches his fingers work. Eventually, a perfect spliff takes shape, and Spunk wastes no time shoving it between his teeth and patting his saggy jeans for a lighter.

“You’re going to make the whole building smell,” Hwitaek warns. Spunk shrugs, finally locating one in his left back pocket. Most of his body language seems to consist of shrugging.

“Cops are more busy with the drunkards ‘nd thieves these days,” Spunk says, the scratching of his lighter coming to life interrupting the sleepy quiet of their conversation. He seems to know from experience, so Hwitaek takes his word.

They sit in silence while Spunk smokes. The smell is nothing Hwitaek is unfamiliar with; his brothers would smoke in the same room as him, all sat in a circle with him on the outside. He never enjoyed the feeling of being high. Everyone said it was because he was in his head too much.

“You ‘nd Red seem to get on well.”

He must still be buzzed; Spunk’s lips purse, his eyes red-rimmed. Hwitaek considers saying something else, maybe changing the subject, but he replies casually.

“She’s cool,” Spunk says. Hwitaek scowls, and Spunk can feel it, eyebrows raising. “If yer’ so goddamn pissed, go ‘nd get her yourself, tiger.”

Hwitaek would be offended if Spunk meant it maliciously. Instead, Hwitaek rolls his eyes, focusing back on the TV. A muddy reality show is playing and he doesn’t have the attention span to decipher what they’re saying through the run-down speakers.

“I’m serious,” Spunk adds. He lifts his fingers to his lips, biting off frayed cuticles. One of his fingers wells up with a small bubble of blood. Hwitaek has a brief thought about licking it off.

“I know you are,” Hwitaek damns himself for sounding so defeated. He tries and save his ego by continuing, “She’s into you and not me - I’m not bitter or nothin’, and I ain’t gonna make this into some shitty rivalry to get a girl’s attention. It ain’t worth it. If we’re gonna be stuck together, we might as well get along ‘nd not let petty shit get in the way of bein’ civil,”

Spunk’s eyes crinkle, lids heavy. He speaks slowly; it’s either because of the weed or to drive his point home.

“I didn’t say nothin’ about a rivalry,”

Hwitaek’s gaze flickers to meet Spunk’s. He doesn’t reply; He guesses Spunk can see his confusion clearly enough.

“Shit doesn’t always gotta’ be a competition, you know,” Spunk says, lips muffled by his fingers and joint smouldering in his free hand’s grip.

“There ain’t nothin’ left to compete over. Yer’ obviously the one she’s-”

“Hui,”

Hwitaek’s lips press into a firm line. Had Spunk ever said his name before, especially that silly new nickname? It sounded nice in his drowsy tone, as if something so casual could be exchanged between them. Could that happen, civility between them without Hyuna there to alleviate tension?

Spunk rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand as if he’s never worked this hard for something in his life.

“I ain’t good at explaining shit,” He grumbles, already defeated, “We been at it for a day ‘nd yer’ already makin’ shit complicated,”

Hwitaek resents this but doesn’t voice it. Spunk’s elbow rests against the lip of the TV, palm in his cheek as he mulls over how to properly make his point.

“There ain’t nothin’ conventional about what we’re doin’, right?”

“Right,” Hwitaek says carefully.

“We’re basically three assholes who got into some shit ‘nd ran. That ain’t really typical, is it,” Spunk adds.

It’s not a question, just like at the gas station - he doesn’t need confirmation to know it’s truth. Hwitaek sighs through his nose, eyes crinkling. This pattern of perception and reckless candidity is going to get irritating real fast. He’s not wrong, but saying it out loud sounds shittier than it feels. After a few moments’ silence, it’s obvious that he won’t acknowledge such a thing out loud, so Spunk continues, his free hand casually batting this way and that.

“So if we’re gonna’ be spendin’ the next few, well, however long livin’ the criminal life… what makes you think we gotta’ be conventional to each other, huh?”

Hwitaek can feel the creases in his forehead deepen. Either Spunk’s too high to speak or Hwitaek is too drunk to understand. Probably both. It’s silent for a few awkward moments before Spunk sighs, his knuckles rubbing at tired eyes in defeat.

“Goddamn it. You’ll figure it out,” he mumbles, putting his barely-burnt joint out on the TV. Hwitaek groans under a sigh at that. “Besides, shit ain’t even figured out yet. Maybe I’ll disappear in the middle of th’ night ‘nd Red will turn ‘round ‘nd plant a big one on ‘ya ‘nd all yer’ wet dreams’ll come true,”

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Hwitaek says, struggling to keep his tone even. “Seems like you both think I got some kinda’ crush. Neither of you know shit, alright? I ain’t got my eyes set on her pussy or nothin’, I can get it anywhere I want.”

It comes out sounding flatter than he intended. Spunk snorts, nodding once in resignation. Hwitaek can tell he’s given up on their conversation entirely.  

“Alright, bud.”

Spunk stands in a catlike stretch, hands joining high above his head and his jaw seeming to unhinge in a yawn. His shirt rides up his abdomen and Hwitaek focuses on the TV to withhold from staring. For a moment, Spunk blocks his vision from the reality show, trekking to the mattress almost like a toddler would. He strips his shirt off - Hwitaek can see it in his periphery - and crawls beside Hyuna. She grumbles something with sleepy irritation and Spunk chuckles as he helps her beneath the comforter, settling beside her in silence. After a few minutes, both of their breathing goes even.

Hwitaek rubs the scar tissue coating his knuckles. He’s over thinking. How can he not? Speaking to Spunk is like deciphering an alien language. When he isn’t shrugging or summarizing his emotions in “cool” or “shit,” Hwitaek is lost.

It’s peaceful for a few minutes. Hwitaek watches a Korean drama for the hell of it and can barely follow the plot, his eyes betraying him and sliding shut when all the good parts happen. He’s considering just giving up and sleeping on the couch, but its cushions resemble stuffing a potato sack with various shaped rocks, and he refuses to sleep in these conditions _and_ drive tomorrow morning.

Hyuna twitches in her sleep. She hasn’t slept this deeply since Hwitaek found her. He turns in his seat to look at her; Spunk and Hyuna sleep facing each other, the dark outline of his fingers on her waist and tuft of blond hair the only identifying factors of his presence. Even from here, Hwitaek can see the tension in her shoulders. She flinches again, wincing at whatever her dreams have brought her. He sighs, resigned, standing to sluggishly turn the TV off and make his way to the bed. He leaves the lights on for the hell of it - who knows who will need to pee and-or throw up in a couple hours.

Hyuna mumbles drowsy gibberish as Hwitaek lifts the comforter and crawls next to her. It’s a tight fit, three adults in a queen bed, but they oddly make it work. He’s fully clothed, shoes and all, too wound up and exhausted to care. For an awkward minute, Hwitaek curls his fists against his chest, sides, behind his head… he avoids touching her, feeling too tense to do so without explicit permission. It must be the alcohol talking, of course, but he’s never touched her aside from their fingertips brushing when he passed her his handkerchief. It takes a large swell of courage for his hand to slip to her hip on top of the comforter. Hyuna doesn’t stir or sigh - the world doesn’t collapse. Hwitaek swallows the lump in his throat, squeezing his eyes shut and allowing the swelling numbness of sleep to take him.

Maybe he really is drunk. Hwitaek swears, even the morning that he wakes, that upon his eyes' closing he can see Spunk's open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk how i feel abt this chapter,,,,,,, i debated just rewriting the whole thing but i dont hate myslf that much
> 
> come keep me company; twitter n tumblr are both "heyyuphey" :-)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for smut bcs im garbage lmaoooo  
> so y'all get a long one bcs i got carried away n want to make up for the very long time inbetween chapters  
> im gonna try n keep up this type of length bcs it's rly comfortable for me, but lmk what u think!!!  
> also, side note - college starts up Monday again, which means slower updates, but i'm gonna do my damndest to keep up w my projects durin this semester. pray for me, y'all  
> 

It’s always been a bit harder for Hyojong to see since Hwitaek laid into him. Not enough to bother him, just to notice; the yellowy film that that his left eye’s sight adopted was surely fading with each day’s passing, and with time he’d be back to his unfiltered way of seeing. Probably. The lightbulbs in their sack of shit motel didn’t help. Sometimes it was hard to tell if the wallpaper was patterned or not without closing his bad eye (it wasn’t). However, Hyojong prided himself in being flexible and adapting to shitty situations, and eventually, the haze was barely noticeable at all

Just like now, Hyojong adapts. Sharing beds was not his forte; it wasn’t that he hated Hyuna (or Hwitaek, for that matter), but proximity was something he was constantly struggling with in their small adventure. Part of him celebrated being found last; the back seat of the car was open for him to stretch out and curl in at any interval he wished while the other two sat bunched up in the front to pilot. He’d feel guilty if they seemed uncomfortable with this, but it seems the opposite; Hyuna made a job out of having the full spectrum of mirrors to look out of and there was seemingly little either of them could do to discourage Hwitaek from his responsibility of driving. So, with little weight on his shoulders, Hyojong splayed openly against the lint-budded seats of the vehicle and made himself at home.

There was little Hyojong could do to prepare for the day he preferred sleeping against the flat and barely-cushioned span in the backseat versus a legitimate bed. Hyuna’s breath was hot against his collarbones and it only aggravated the heat of summer already surrounding them. He could smell the sour apple of her shampoo, the light from the window already aggravating the dark behind his eyelids. The frizzy feel of Hyuna’s bedhead is pressed against his lips and nose; his awakening fingers twitch experimentally, bumping against the swell of Hyuna’s backside, his wrist dangling limply from her hip. He grumbles gibberish, attempting to peel himself away from the furnace of a human, when foreign fingers snag around his bicep hold him in place.

Finally, Hyojong forces an eye to open. The sun is on the cusp of touching their carpet across the small room, just an hour or two longer and the light of it would be warming their feet; they must have slept until mid-afternoon. He isn’t surprised. His free arm stretches over his head, joints cracking in the thick silence. A hoarse grunt of exertion slips through Hyojong’s lips without permission and he watches unsettled dust swirl in the sunlight above him. This place was goddamn filthy. He’d be choosing the next motel they’d stay at, that’s for sure. The blob of feral red rat's nests shifts beside him restlessly; Hyojong drops his chin, finally looking to the person he opened his eyes for in the first place.

As expected, Hyuna’s face is pinched in sleepy anxiety. Her brows are furrowed enough to push deep wrinkles into her forehead and nose, her lips turned down in the corners and parted to give a hint of her front teeth. He can tell from the push of her jaw that she is clenching her teeth. Her fingers twitch involuntarily; her palms are slick with sweat, and despite whatever dream she is having, her hands are loose on his bicep. Experimentally, Hyojong attempts to tug his arm closer to his chest; her knuckles turn white as she clamps onto him, a hiss of air puffing onto his face punctuating her disdain for his movement. Hyojong stares sleepily. 

No matter how pathetic it sounds, Hyojong is immediately aware that he has no idea what to do. Staying close and delaying the stress of his exit seems to be the sensible option; perhaps Hyuna is a clingy sleeper, maybe she only does this during bad dreams, but it’s still strange for him to witness someone so openly wishing for his presence. His anchors have never consisted of people. They’ve been foods and places and drugs that he’s never experienced, objects that hold sentimental value for him to include in his suicide note so he may be cremated with them. Things to delay the finality of his desires; travel and exploration can only take you so far, but at times like these, you always come back to know how feeble and hopeless you are. He doesn’t wish to drip into her ear and drop himself into her dream to save her - no, she’s strong enough to save herself, and the intimacy of witnessing what she sees when she falls unconscious for the night is too much for him to think about. He considers shaking her awake, but Hyuna seems to be wound tight and ready to spring at all times. The last thing she needs is a lack of slumber. She could sleep in the car, but he knows she won’t, not when there are mirrors to man. 

Hyojong swallows, the mixed taste of faded marijuana and morning breath repugnant. He hesitates, unsure of himself despite her obvious need for an interruption. He lifts his hand from her hip - slowly, to keep from jarring her too intensely - and maneuvers awkwardly to smooth the pad of his thumb against her forehead.

Hyuna flinches so abruptly that Hyojong expects Hwitaek to jolt awake beside her. Hyojong stills, allowing her to acclimate to the new sensation, before kneading at the muscle gently. He works his way down, brushing the hair of her brows, his pinkie coming to rest against her hairline as he attempts to rub away some of the tension in her expression. She may have a hangover when she wakes and the additional ache from pinching her brows together on top of that seems too cruel to ignore. So, he lays on his side and works away, listening to the dull roll of traffic and doors open and shut across the motel. He can even hear the drawl of a Daegu news station play from somewhere in the building - these antennas must be better than he took them for.

Eventually, Hyuna’s expression is flat, even without the massaging digit to aid her. Again, Hyojong tugs his arm away from her grip, delicate despite the ironlike hold she held, but her fingers melded against the change like soft butter. Her touch was featherlight as he pulls his bicep free, his skin vibrating at the sudden rush of blood to his limb. Hyojong pauses, however, watching her for a few moments to assure her stability. Her face twitches every now and again, her lips beginning to turn down again in the corners, but her muscles stay effectively relaxed. He doubts she’ll stay asleep much longer and finally peels himself from the bed.

Hwitaek surely thinks of himself as someone slick but Hyojong didn’t miss the way he swiped a carton of cigarettes out of someone’s back pocket last night. He doesn’t hesitate before wrestling the pack free from his companion’s back pocket, his jeans still slipped onto his frame even in slumber. The other didn’t stir or stutter in his breathing at the touch. Flipping the top, Hyojong made his way to the front door, sucking on his teeth at the state of the cigarettes. He figured someone like Hwitaek to be so careful. They were squashed, the cardboard bent and flared out at the edges and the filters and tobacco flattened against his dead weight. But a fag was a fag, and so he stuck a flattened filter between his teeth, yanking the door open and stepping out into the afternoon air.

Hyojong leaves the door ajar, allowing his companions to find him easily in case they wake. He lights his cigarette with the Bic lighter remaining in his pocket from last night, taking a heavy drag. The nicotine would wake him up and stop his hands from shaking - he’d smoke the last of the joint he rolled last night, but doing so outside was begging for trouble. He wasn’t close enough to Hwitaek to risk purposefully pissing him off. From the way he recoiled from his offer last night, you’d think he was allergic to trouble. Ah, but he did steal a car, didn’t he. Hyojong smirks. _Allergic to trouble my ass._

Hyojong lets the cigarette hang from his lips, inhaling every few moments and effectively expelling the smoke through his nose to free his hands. He decided that it was not the day for thinking - thinking about how long they’d run, where’d they go, if they truly have the money for it, what happens if one (or all) of them gets caught - so, he busies himself by picking at the barcode sticker along the back of the lighter’s body, the milky green color not opaque enough to hide the slosh of whatever lighter fluid laid inside. 

Hyojong isn't sure why, what has shifted to make him notice, but he knows that he feels uncomfortable. Not enough to warrant some kind of physical wriggling or nausea, but enough for him to feel the need to suck on his bottom lip. It was the kind of discomfort you get from being too close to someone who rubs you the wrong way - someone who may have the ability to hurt you. Maybe it’s from sharing such an intimate space with relatively new and fairly attractive strangers. He takes this as a message and, instead of delving into the self-reflection that he is so notoriously shitty at, he allows his mind to wander.

He had no idea where they were and he didn’t really feel inclined to ask. As usual, he allowed others to take the reins while he sat back to watch. The sun was lower than he thought it was, already beginning to turn orange among the clouds. They were far enough into the outskirts of Seoul and away from city life to actually hear the occasional tune of a bird over the white noise of other’s business. It was louder than the pounding bass of a passing car’s radio or the shouting five doors down accompanied by porcelain shattering. Hyojong purses his lips at the noise, uninspired to assist or tip off the motel staff, focused intently on cleanly removing the adhesive despite his nubby bitten-down nails.

There’s a part of him that wonders if he’s ever been in a place this quiet. Ah, yes - that’s what is causing the uncomfortable weight in his belly. It was silent here in so many ways. Not quite in volume alone but in action; has he ever been in a place that hasn’t been wide yet constricting, or a space where he could hop in a car and change it, whether it be through the next town or across the ocean in a plane? A place not revolving around the chaos of his own wrongdoings, whether it be attempted suicide or simply skipping too many classes at university? Hyojong feels a smile threaten his lips. The memory of his father’s fury at his expulsion wasn’t something to giggle over, but it certainly made him feel powerful watching the bald man go red. To Hyojong, that’s something to smile over. A man who knew of his son’s temperament and ability to worm his way out of any authority-oriented activity should have seen it coming. Hyojong wasn’t a circus animal to be whipped when he behaved badly and praised when he jumped through flaming hoops, no matter how it hurt. Hyojong cannot even remember what the purpose of his studies were - his father chose his major for him. _Fuck that._ Hyojong sees little in himself, but he’s surely proud of wiggling himself out of shit he can’t give a fuck about.   

The timid pull of their front door is amplified by the cry of its rusty hinges. Hyojong lifts his gaze from the few sticky patches of sticker that refused to budge to Hyuna’s large, sleep-swollen eyes. She’s in the same clothes as last night, save for her shirt; in the time Hyojong has been outside, she’s abandoned her Led Zeppelin shirt in favor for the baggy white tee he wore last night. The form of it swallows her whole, even more so than it does him, and he can smell his own aftershave and marijuana waft from it where he stands. Her hair is now up in a bun the size of a coconut, flyaways glowing in the afternoon sun. She blinks, twice, and a small smile dances across her expression as her eyes acclimate to the light.

“Good morning,” She says, knowing fully that they had slept well past lunchtime. She finally steps past the threshold, hands wringing in front of her ribs. The door clicks shut softly behind her.

Hyojong nods in reply, dropping his gaze back to the lighter, his thumb nail skidding across the paper. Hyuna hovers for a moment. Hyojong feels awkward; it’s almost as if she doesn’t know what to say to him. Maybe he woke her with his uncharacteristic touches? The last thing he needs is Hyuna feeling queer after he’s kind to her.

  
“Got any left?” Hyuna asks suddenly, breaking the momentary silence. Hyojong glances in her direction, eyes blank, before one eyebrow lifts in incentive for her to explain. “Cig- uh, cigarettes. Sorry. Have you got one?”

“Ah,” Hyojong grunts, finally dropping the lighter into his pocket in exchange for the pack. He holds it out to her, the flattened filter surprising her. Her fingers stutter before taking it between her index and middle fingers, snorting at the look of it. 

“Where’d you get these?” Hyuna asks, a smile in her voice. 

“Hwitaek’s pocket. The guy must weigh a thousand fuckin’ pounds to turn ‘em into linguini like that,” Hyojong mumbles, his hand burying itself into his pocket again. Hyuna laughs at this, her shoulders shaking and the sound bouncing about the brick of their building and fading into the distance. It was loud - it shatters the dull quiet and interrupted the lull of the motel’s whitenoise. Hyojong is grateful for it.

Her laughter fades and she awkwardly fiddles with the cigarette, obviously questioning his lack of movement to pull the lighter out. Hyojong glances at her fingers - long, slender, still tinged pink around the cuticles from her episode in the gas station - and lifts his hand to gesture her closer.

“C’mere,” He says. Hyuna doesn’t. She stares at him for a moment, hesitating, the cigarette stilling in her hands.

It takes a dozen pregnant moments for Hyojong to figure out she truly wasn’t going to move. Hyojong sighs. _Shit’s always gotta be goddamn difficult._ He steps forward, his free hand plucking the cigarette from her fingers. He holds it in front of her lips like he would hold a joint, tight between his fingertips; her eyes follow his every movement, and when she feels the flattened filter brush against her bottom lip, she meets his eyes with an eyebrow raised.

“I’m teachin’ you how to light a cigarette without a lighter,” He explains shortly. “I ain’t makin’ you inhale that butane shit. Quit actin’ like this is fuckin’ life and limb, huh?”

In plain words, such a thing would translate loosely to: _“Trust me, I’m not going to hurt you,”_ or _“I promise I’m not going to do anything weird, alright, baby?”_ Hyojong has become accustomed to his peers flinching at his bluntness. He doesn’t mean it all maliciously - at least, not all the time. Professors and authority figures alike would often tell him to hold his tongue, wash his mouth out… And, as a child, his father often did just that. But living in a household of false smiles and plastic etiquette truly makes someone wish for the ability to spit poison. That was impossible, so Hyojong did the next best thing. He broke the polite silences before they could begin.

It’s because of this that Hyojong feels the smallest flicker of guilt at his language. Hyuna is a stranger to him, but she is a kind one, and he hasn’t witnessed that in a long time. But, no, instead of recoil in shock at his bluntness, Hyojong watches the momentary flicker of a smirk play at the corners of her lips as if he said something kind. A bit of her timidness lost, Hyuna leans forward, lipstick-smudged lips accepting the filter between. Hyojong watches with a bit more interest than necessary, his head cocking ever-so-slightly to the side and tongue threatening to poke through to wet his mouth. He withholds himself, however; it’s too early, sleep still clinging to both of their lids, and the atmosphere between them is too new. 

Hyuna seems to disagree. She purses her lips around the paper, her mouth making soft wet noises from behind her teeth. She stares up at him with those big hazel eyes, her gaze unmoving from his own. Hyojong swallows.

“Ah, you’re ridiculous,” Hyojong grumbles, feebly attempting to withhold a smile. “I’m tryina’ help you ‘nd you get all coy on me,” 

Her lips spread into a cheeky grin, filter between her teeth. It crinkles her eyes and they twinkle like starlight as she laughs again. It’s just as jarring as before, and he leans into it.

“Hold still, alright? I ain’t gonna burn ya’. Inhale,” Hyojong instructs, distracting himself from the glimmering masterpiece that is Hyuna. She clears her throat to push away the oncoming giggles, her lips wrapping around the filter once more with purpose. She does as she is told, her cheeks hollowing minutely as she breathes through the fag, and Hyojong leans forward to press the nearly burnt-out ember at the end of his filter to the face of her cigarette. After a moment, Hyuna’s eyebrows lift at the taste of tobacco.

An indignant squeal reverberates through her chest as she wraps her index and middle finger about the cigarette. Hyojong leans back as she plucks it from her mouth, twisting to inspect the cherry in amazement. It wasn’t that great of a trick, Hyojong and his friends would do such things during chain smoking moments as children just for excuses to pull each other close. Hyojong pulls his own now-useless filter from his lips, flicking it onto the pavement without moving his gaze from Hyuna’s face. Smoke billows from her lips beautifully.

“I never knew you could do that!” Hyuna says. She gives him a wide-eyed look that Hyojong can’t help but smile at. “Where’d you learn that, huh?”

“Grade school,” Hyojong admits. Hyuna frowns.

“You been smokin’ that long?” She asks, her fingers lifting for another drag.

“Nah, but my daddy did,” Hyojong snorts, dropping his gaze to his toes. He curls them against the warm pavement, relishing in the rough feeling. “Got me hooked on ‘em quick enough, though. He’d leave his pack out in the open pretty often.”

“Mm,” Is all Hyuna manages to say. Hyojong leans against the doorframe, the splintered wood scratching his bare skin as he looks out to the road and beyond, watching Hyuna smoke in his periphery. She’s the one with her eyes glued to the floor now, her gaze hard and contemplative. 

“Ain’t a big deal,” Hyojong mumbles, sensing the worry coming off of her in waves.

Instead of give an actual answer, she grunts again. Hyojong begins to get irritated despite himself. He just shared something - he doesn’t fucking _share_. He chews on the frayed flesh of his bottom lip, willing himself to give her time to reply, or simply finish her cigarette and go back inside.

“Were you a bad kid, huh?” 

Hyojong turns his head to look at her. She’s looking at him again, a humorous smile spread across her lips. It feels as if she’s forcing herself to relax. Hyojong hates that.

“What do you think?” He asks. 

Hyuna’s lips pull to the side, jaw working as she chews the inside of her cheek. She studies his face rather than hold his gaze, her eyes following the dip of his cupid’s bow and the slope of his jaw. For a few long seconds, she doesn’t reply, and Hyojong doesn’t push.

“Nah,” She finally says, flicking the ash off of her cigarette. “There ain’t no such thing as bad kids, anyway. Just bad parents,”

Hyojong snorts, a smile breaking across his face before he has any chance to reel it in. He drops his head, tongue laving his bottom lip as he chuckles. If he wasn’t a bad kid then pigs could fuckin’ fly all along. She seemed to be rather intuitive, more so than he was, and she could probably figure him out like a jigsaw if she really wanted to. Hiding things felt more fun and game-like than for his preservation with her.

He can feel her gaze on him, heavy and refreshing, so he turns his head to meet it. Her face is blank, mismatching his laughter, and she looks suddenly conflicted. Her hand lifts to scratch the crease of her arm, her cigarette still smoking and alive in her free hand. Hyojong feels the desire to laugh slip from his throat and he waits.

“Do you think so?” Hyuna whispers.  

“Hm?”

“That there are no such thing as bad kids?”

“Yeah,” He says, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He wasn’t lying - not that he could, not to her - but it didn’t ease the sudden discomfort that fell over them. It was thick and he wasn’t sure he could breathe properly until it dissolved. Hyuna remained silent - he assumed this was to hear what he had to say.

“Kids ain’t got nothin’ to base their morals on except their environment, right?” Hyojong begins. He knows jack-all about this kind of psychology shit, but he’ll try if it means Hyuna’s smile will come back. He glances back to the road as he speaks, feeling rather stupid for trying so hard. “If you’re around bad people all the fuckin’ time, how do you know what is truly right and wrong? Honestly, that could be applied to adults, too - there's whole classes on this type of shit in uni, it ain't easy to process like you think, baby. All of us got this moral code we’re tryina’ follow to become the ‘correct’ person when it ain’t even achievable half the time. When you’re vulnerable, as a kid or whatever, you’re actin’ on instinct, but your instinct ain’t entirely based on nature, is it? Nah, it’s nurture, too - and everybody ain’t blessed with people who give a fuck. People who will teach you what’s a right- or, or _good_ gut feelin’ and what’s not.”

Hyojong spares a look in her direction. Her lips are pulled in, now, tight in a blanched line. She seems to be chewing on her tongue with a bit of a lost look in her eye. Hyojong feels himself lick his lips nervously. She’s scary - as a whole person and like this. She’s scary because she’s good and receptive and kind and her laugh sounds like the clay windchimes his nan helped him make as a child. And she’s terrifying because she has a long timeline behind her, one that she seems to drag behind her like an anchor. That night he was found in the car, he noticed after he slept off the ice that she had long smears of blood across her skin, some that were scrubbed nearly entirely away and patches that remained untouched. It wasn’t in ugly sprays or blotches that suggested that she beat someone to death - most of her clothes were spotless when they abandoned them in the shopping centre dumpster - but it coated her purposefully in ways that made him anxious. Like she had no choice but to dirty herself like that. She still hasn’t spoken and that alien discomfort in him writhes. He’s about to open his mouth, to ask what makes her feel so heavy and ask such things, but she beats him to break the silence. 

“Sorry,” Hyuna says quickly. She smiles lopsidedly. It doesn’t touch her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make ya’ spell out your beliefs like that. I’m not tryina’ pry - you’re kind to me, and that’s all I care about. Your past is irrelevant to that. I just get curious, is all.”

The other can see a door slam in his face when he sees one. Hyojong nods slowly.

They fall into silence. The sun is beginning to slide past their line of sight on the horizon. Hyuna has long since stopped smoking her cigarette, simply allowing it to ash between her bare feet as she stands with a distant look on her face. Hyojong’s curious, but not enough to pry. Upsetting her would piss Hwitaek off, the whipped bastard, and he will do all he can to make sure their awkward adventure goes without a hitch until he finds a rational jumping off point.

“I was a bad kid,” Hyojong admits. He can see Hyuna flinch at the sudden break in their silence; she furrows her brow at him. There’s something so unsettling about the silence that he recently realized he’d never experienced - he can’t fucking stand it. The heaviness in him burns the longer they sit in the stale quiet. He shifts on his feet, uncomfortable in his skin. If something doesn’t move, he’s sure he’ll punch through the paper-thin motel wall just for some excitement.

“I, uh, I know I said all that cheesy shit ‘bout kids, but just believe me when I said I was one,” Hyojong scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. He’s never spoken about this as an adult - not to therapists his father bought sessions for, not to university counsellors who confronted him about the fresh scars on his arm. He only ever risked such openness with his small group of high school friends, all of whom were just as itchy for change as he was.

“Um, my dad, he was a doctor. Or a lawyer? Or some shit. I never really cared what he did. He’d talk about it all the time and I’d zone him out. I really didn’t give a fuck, and to be honest, I still don’t. Ah, that ain’t what I said it for. Point is, we had money, right?” Hyojong explains.

His head meets the brick of their flimsy motel, looking away from the woman ahead of him. Fuck him with a chainsaw if he makes eye contact with her right now.

“I was real spoilt as a kid. We lived in a real big house ‘nd it was nice. I got everythin’ handed to me. My momma didn’t needa’ work ‘cause dad took care of all the bills, she did nothin’ all day except fuck around with me as a kid. We’d do all sorts of stupid shit - she’d drive me to the creeks across town ‘nd let me try ‘nd catch a fish with my bare hands like they did in Mulan, we’d climb fuckin’ trees even though she was wearin’ a dress that probably cost more than our fuckin’ car. She was real careless, and I loved her a lot.” 

There was a pang of something in Hyojong’s chest at mentioning his mother so casually. Guilt, again? Maybe grief? Anger? He didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t like it. If there was any chance of him staying sane after this conversation, he’d need to tread carefully.

“Uh, well, some stuff went down in my family. As soon as shit hit the fan, I skipped classes ‘nd started lighting up anything I could get my hands on. I was 13 ‘nd cookin’ up heroin on my very own getup, can you imagine? Kept all of it in an old cigar box I stole off my old man ‘nd hid it in the floorboards of my fuckin’ closet,”

Hyojong snorts, shaking his head as if he were talking about a bad move during a football game. His companion obviously found this far less humorous than he did, however, and her silence only stretched on until he continued his story.

“Start of middle school was my turnin’ point to go downhill. Well, that’s what everyone else said, I think I’ve been goin’ that way since I was fuckin’ born. My dad said I got in with the wrong crowd but they got me, you know? They knew how fucked everythin’ could be ‘nd we was there to prove it. Their parents were lawyers for celebrities or plastic surgeons or fuckin’ neuroscientists and we sat around smokin’ ice and snortin’ up our parents’ prescriptions for fun. We went to a real snooty school for rich people ‘nd every once in awhile, we’d skip class ‘nd pool money we stole from our parents to buy the strongest shit we could. Dope, weed, coke, whatever, if it got us the fuck outta our heads we did it. We’d lay around like fuckin’ zombies for days when we did that. I learned fuck-all my last seven years of school. Eventually, my dad paid off my professors and I got my diploma, ‘nd the group fell apart. Most of the crew either ODd or went to rehab, or both, or neither, ‘nd I was by myself again.”

Hyojong swallows. His throat is dry - it's been near years since he’s spoken so willingly with a person, especially about this. His responses are usually short and minimal, mostly leaving more to be desired, and he likes it like that. But there's no cutting corners with this woman. He can't, and he doesn't want to. The cottony ache that's leeched onto him since he woke melts into his chest, causing an ache separate from that of tobacco's burn. Hyojong shifts on his feet uncomfortably. 

“I’ve, uh… tried to off myself more times than I can count, Red. I ain't smooth or cool or any of that shit. Too many people think I’m tryina’ fit in some kind of role that I'm too small for, but I ain't. I’m, uh… I got a lot of baggage and it’s exhausting to carry. But you probably know that, from how you found me and all…”

Finally, the blond turns, gauging Hyuna’s reaction. The cigarette hangs in front of her lips by the grasp of her fingertips. Its cherry has long since gone out, leaving her staring behind the spent filter. He watches her swallow, the flesh of her throat shimmying and rolling with the action. As if for courtesy, Hyojong reaches forward, plucking the filter from her fingers and tossing it to the floor. She blinks, seemingly jarred back into consciousness, and she lowers her hand to hang by her hip. Hyojong smirks, his lips tight against one another. 

“We all fuck up, baby, and that’s okay. Bad kids exist, but most of ‘em ain’t born that way. And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with bein’ a fuck-up. But no matter what, you ain’t makin’ the same mistakes I made - hell, I still make - and that’s somethin’ for you to celebrate. Alright?” 

Hyuna frowns, her eyebrows pinching together slightly. He can see the muscles twitch at the action; they must be fatigued from all they did while she was asleep.

“I don’t like it when you say it like that,” She murmurs gently. Hyojong shrugs.

 “I ain’t one to mince words.”

“I noticed,” Hyuna smiles a bit at that. She rubs at her forearm, more to ground herself than perform some kind of function. “Would it make you feel better if I shared somethin’ too? Er… I dunno’ how this all works, but I sure don't want you feelin’ weird around me after openin’ up like that.”

Hyojong feels like snorting, but the sound comes out a strangled cough. “Nah, you ain't gotta’ tell me nothin’. I ain't here to boss you around, baby.” 

Her smile crinkles the corners of her eyes, making the crease of her eyelids turn into little grins too. Hyojong can feel his reservations break from those damn smiles, and before he can recover, she licks her lips and asks, “What’s your name?”

Ah, shit. He chews on his lip, irritated at himself for falling anxious from such a small request. Why does telling her who he is freak him out so much? Back where he’s from, his name sounded dirty on the tongue of his father, his many mistresses, the professors that attempted to tame him. They shouted it as if it were the name of the Antichrist himself - and, to be fair, it might be - and, with time, he grew to hate what others called him. E’Dawn was something so different, so far out from what they saw him as.

… Ah. Fuck it.

“Hyojong Kim,” He mumbles, gaze dropping to her feet. Her toes are curled into the warmth of the pavement, just as his were moments ago.

He ignores the way he can physically feel her smile, the way it spreads over her pretty teeth and shows off those dimples of hers. It’s suddenly too hot, he’s suffocating, but he breathes in the syrupy feeling of her happiness and hopes to get high on it. He can feel the warm and slightly damp press of her palm against his shoulder, and she hovers closer, on her tiptoes to press a kiss into the space between his jaw and ear. He can feel the light imprint of lipstick left behind, and he smirks at the waxy feeling.

“Thank you, Spunk,” She whispers, lips dancing along his skin. She murmurs the nickname like a promise, one that will keep all secrets he tells her with those delicate and strong hands of hers, and his eyes slip shut. “I love hearin’ about your life, y’know? … About what happened before all this. Even if it’s messy and ugly ‘nd you made mistakes ‘nd you hate yourself for them, it’s yours, and I want it.”

Hyojong swallows thickly. He can feel her words seep through his skin and enter his bloodstream. It’s like the honeyed feeling of heroin with the blood-pumping rush of coke. He doesn’t know what this girl is made of, but he’s dying to taste it.

All he can do is nod in reply, not trusting his voice to stay steady - _you’re welcome._

And, just like that, Hyuna presses a final kiss to his cheek before easing onto her feet and dipping past the motel room’s threshold. It doesn’t feel like abandonment, he doesn’t think she’s capable of something like that. Spending the majority of his life alone must have allotted for some kind of obvious need for solitude. Loneliness was never an issue for Hyojong - he always flourished while alone. He could talk to himself or abuse himself whichever way he wanted without being judged. He could smoke or snort or shoot up as much as he wanted without a nagging presence telling him what was too much. He could hurt himself or shatter his mirrors or wrap plastic bags around his head if he wanted to, and all that would be there to greet him after would be staticy, charged silence dampened by his obnoxious music.

But, even Hyojong can’t deny that his side feels a tad colder after she leaves the door ajar behind her.

The muffled rumble of sleepy conversation is nearly lost past the brick of the motel’s walls; if Hyuna hadn’t left the door cracked behind her, Hyojong wouldn’t have noticed it. A feminine giggle of mischief accents Hwitaek’s sleepy grumbling. Any residual anxiety or awkwardness melts away as soon as she steps into their shared space, almost as if they hadn’t spoken at all, and Hyojong is thankful for that. Hwitaek doesn’t seem like a bad guy - in fact, to Hyojong, he seems rather notable past his stoniness and bullshit attitude about their “competition” - but Hyojong is positive that explaining his story to another set of waiting ears would result in him creating a makeshift passage between their room and whoever is unfortunate enough to live next door. 

Instead of thinking about their conversation, Hyojong smokes another cigarette.

He lingers outside, smoking down to the very filter despite it burning his tongue before going inside. The sound of the shower going accounts for Hyuna’s sudden absence. The sunlight is licking at the carpet near the foot of their mattress now, more orange than friendly yellow, and Hyojong notes the lump of a man still in bed. Hwitaek is curled into a ball, his back to Hyojong with the comforter thrown haphazardly over his frame, the back of his shirt entirely on display from where his sleepy hands couldn’t pull the fabric across him properly. Hyojong tosses the cigarettes at him, watching them land near the curve of his knees pressed to his chest. Hwitaek jumps, his eyebrows lifting to force his eyelids open, assessing the dark blue carton against the blanket. Eventually, he rolls to peek over his shoulder, squinting against the sunlight leaking through their windows.

“Rise and shine,” Hyojong says blandly, hands in his pockets. “Thanks for the fag.” 

Hwitaek grunts in reply, dropping his head back against the pillow. A hand finds its way to his face, scrubbing at his stubbled cheeks and rubbing at his eyes childishly. 

“What time is it?” Hwitaek grumbles. Hyojong shrugs.

“No idea - late afternoon, probably.”

“Mm, shit,” Hwitaek laughs once without any humor. He rubs at an eye roughly with the heel of his palm. “Hyuna didn’t know, either. I wanted to get out of here early. Why’d you let me sleep so long, huh?”

“I ain’t your carer,” Hyojong snorts, making his way to sit on the foot of the bed. His legs cross against the comforter, shoulders slouching as he picks at the frayed knees of his jeans. “You wanna get up early, set an alarm or somethin’.”

“Ain’t got one,” Hwitaek glares at him over the lip of the blanket, now cutely covering half his face.

“We’re rollin’ in won and you still tryina’ find an excuse not to have a goddamn alarm clock?”

At this, Hwitaek pauses, before a small smile breaks across his usual frigid expression.

“Fuck off,” He says, a smile apparent in his voice.

Hyojong smirks at him, and with nothing else to discuss, they fall into a semi-comfortable silence. Hwitaek watches Hyojong’s fingers rip at the thread of his pants, wincing when he roughly yanks thick locks from his knee and drops them carelessly onto the comforter. Equally, Hyojong spends their small one-on-one time memorizing the look of Hwitaek’s dishevelled and barely-awake form. His eyes seem twice as small as they usually do. The skin about them looks swollen and exhausted, the roundness of them sunken in their sockets with the desire to fall back asleep. Hyojong almost wishes he would. With Hyuna between them, Hyojong hadn’t the ability to see him in his sleepy glory. Really, Hwitaek has a rather handsome face, his lips round and pouty and all cut up from the way he abuses them with his teeth. Not only that, but paired with a bangin’ body, and _fuck_ , they’re all dumb blind if they hadn’t noticed that _ass_ - 

The bathroom door creaks open slightly, the shower still running. Both men lift their chins to look for their redheaded accomplice. Hyuna grins, her hair sopping wet against her shoulders and dripping on the carpet as she leans out of the restroom shamelessly. The door cannot hide the soft curve of her breast, and before Hwitaek can look away respectfully or Hyojong can mention it, Hyuna lifts a hand to point childishly at Hwitaek with a laugh. 

“Told you he’d wake yer’ lazy ass up before I was done,” She giggles, entirely unbothered. Hyojong stares, his head tilting to the side to get a better vantage point from his spot on the bed, and Hwitaek clears his throat and tries not to look anywhere but Hyuna’s face.

“What’s up, Reddy?” Hwitaek asks. Hyojong can’t see him, not while such a beautiful thing is out for him to behold, but he can picture the new stiffness in his shoulders and the flush that might just reach his chest.

Hyuna hums, almost as if she forgot the reason she left her shower in the first place.

“Oh! Uh, I ‘dunno how long you guys wanna do this whole on-the-road thing, but I vote that we take a pit stop before hittin’ the next highway - ion’ know about you boys, but my hair requires more than two tiny bottles of shampoo that smell like old ladies. ‘Nd I need a razor ‘nd washcloth ‘nd shit. I can pull off the greasy look for only so long, yeah?”

“That’s a good idea,” Hyojong agrees, still distracted by the skin of her chest. Her breasts are small, but he knew that - her bra is still laying out on the coffee table for everyone to see.  Her areolas are small, even smaller in the cold air outside of the shower, and Hyojong wonders what it’d feels like under the pads of his thumbs.

Hyuna throws a towel at him, breaking him out of his reverie.

“Eyes up here!” She grins. There isn't a shameful bone in her body and he loves it.

“Mm,” Is all Hyojong can mutter, finally glancing up at her face.

Her eyes glimmer with mischief. Hyojong doesn’t know what’s gotten into her today to make her so bubbly and loud - even more so than usual, at least - despite their talk to drag the mood, but he can’t find a single thing to complain about. With a childish grin, Hyuna slinks back into the humidity of the bathroom, closing the door behind her with a dry click.

Hyuna seems to have a streak of un-embarrassedness in her that Hyojong could very easily get used to. It was obvious, even in the car ride which they met. Some would be uncomfortable or meek from their own conflicting reservation where other people could disagree so openly, especially about a trunk full of stolen fucking won, but not their Reddy - no, she wears her emotions on her sleeve, carrying them into the open where anyone interested enough could take notice. It only took a moment to look at her and see what she was thinking and why. Her anxieties about the money were palpable. She shifted from foot to foot and chewed at the frayed skin of her lips (most of which had been gnawed off and spit out the car window by the time they found a shop with her lipstick shade). Hyojong wondered if this was new, possibly a fresh anxiety response from the overwhelming stress of whatever bloody crime she committed, or if she's been like this since childhood.

Unfortunately, Hwitaek seems less inclined to allow Hyuna’s rambunctiousness bounce off of him as easily as Hyojong is. That, or he’s already whipped and feeling shy. It takes nearly a full minute for his face to fade from bright crimson, and even then, it still carries a peachiness that one would expect after a long moment in the saunas. Hyojong smirks, lifting a finger to poke his cheek.

“Aw, is the hard man all flustered?” He says blankly. Hwitaek swats his hand away with more vigor than necessary and Hyojong lets his fingers collapse to the comforter.

“Fuck off, Spunk,” Hwitaek repeats. This time, there isn't a hint of a smile to warm the conversation.

And he does. Hyojong makes a game out of counting the water damage spots on the ceiling, and when he finishes that, he rates each from one to ten. Hyuna takes her sweet time in the bathroom and neither of them mind - there may not be any hot water left for their turns, and after she emerges from the bath, the pink of her skin would suggest the very same. She radiates heat and Hwitaek eyes her cautiously, red streaks that resemble her own nails’ doing trail down her arms and chest and thighs and wrists. Hyojong holds his tongue until Hwitaek mumbles grumpily about his turn and disappears behind the bathroom door. 

Hyojong stands, joints cracking loudly, and he’s grateful for the noise to announce his approach. Hyuna is wrapped in a papery white towel, the edges tucked beneath her armpits as she fidgets with the coffee maker in their kitchenette, her top lip pulled between her teeth in concentration. She does not jump when Hyojong’s hands come to rest against the balls of her shoulders, the coolness of his skin contrasting against the abused heat of hers. A small part of him hopes the iciness feels nice.

Her hair is pulled back into a bun again. They never bought her hair ties - either she somehow brought one with her or her hair wrapped around itself tightly enough to stay in an organized bundle. Hyojong guesses the latter. The amount of frizz and volume she carries on her head probably weighs her down - he can’t imagine how heavy it must be when wet. The offwhite towel is barely long enough to cover the tops of her thighs, yet neither of them linger much on this thought - it’s only awkward if they make it such. When Hyuna shakes her head in silent irritation, the giant bun bumps Hyojong on the chin.

Hyuna pays him no mind, her full attention absorbed by the alien machinery of their coffee brewing system. It’s a cheap thing, a hunk of plastic and metal that Hyojong could undress with his eyes; he watches her struggle, unable to pull the swinging compartment open to dump their complimentary pre-ground coffee into its filter. Silently, he reaches past her shoulder, pressing a red button on the far edge with a click. With that, the small plastic door is unlocked, and Hyuna wrenches it open harder than necessary. She’s lucky the damn thing didn’t snap off entirely. She pauses, rightfully so, and Hyojong can guess that she’s either damning herself for not seeing the little lock or pouting. 

“‘Welcome,” Hyojong mutters. He sees the balls of her cheeks push up as she smiles in her own hidden way.

“Thank you, Spunk,” Hyuna says sweetly. She reaches across the counter for the crimson bag of coffee. She doesn’t unroll the paper top, instead ripping across it and peeling the thick foil aside. Hyojong blinks, but says nothing as she dumps enough into the fresh filter for the three of them. From the look of it, she likes her coffee strong. 

As Hyuna pulls her hand back from the machine, Hyojong lifts his hand to take hold of her wrist. It’s coated in scratches, some of them dotted in vibrant red where she rubbed hard enough to break capillaries. Hyojong pulls her hand closer, coffee bag and all, to take a thorough look at the damage.

“This gonna become a habit, baby?” Hyojong asks, his tone dead. He hopes she can figure out that the question is evidence that he cares. 

Hyuna purses her lips. It seems that she’s truly thinking the question over before answering. Hyojong’s eyes follow the veins of abuse down her skin in mourning.

“Iunno,” She murmurs. She sounds as dissatisfied as he is with the answer.

“You scared it might?”

“I guess,”

It would be polite to offer his help, but Hyojong is fully aware that he can’t fix anyone. Besides, it’s not his fight, nor is it any of his business how she treats herself. She’s a grown woman - not only that, but she is capable of maiming someone else enough to roll around in their blood like a pig in mud. Hyuna is entirely capable of caring for herself. But it’d be a filthy lie if Hyojong told himself he wasn’t a tad worried - no, _concerned_ , at this pattern.

Has she self-harmed in the past like he has? Maybe this has nothing to do with whatever she did back then, maybe this is a manifestation of her desperation and lack of ability to truly do a number on herself. Hyojong hasn’t seen any scars on her skin, but then again, he hasn’t truly seen her outside of the blacklights in bars. He averts his gaze from her arms at the thought. It’s none of his business, none of his goddamn business at all. 

The circle of fingers about Hyuna’s wrist falls away. It’s none of his concern whether she betters herself, whether this is new or old, whether it becomes a norm or her impulses fade tomorrow. Hyojong is incapable of caring for others, that’s what he thinks, and he tries to laugh at the sudden polarizing of his beliefs because of a couple of strangers. Hyuna isn’t a mousy girl nor is she made of tissue paper, and he refuses to treat her as such.

“Be more careful,” Is all he says on the matter. “Have you ever fuckin’ made coffee before? You act like the thing just got dropped off an alien spaceship,”

“I’m not used to cheap ass models like this, alright?” She spits. She seems more bothered by his teasing than his noticing of her self-harm.

Hyuna scowls as she struggles to unhinge the water reservoir from the side of the plastic body. She finally wriggles it free with a loud pop that was far too sharp, probably signalling something successfully snapping out of place, but the redhead ignores it. She happily fills the reservoir, deeming her impatient method a success.

“Mm, you fancy or somethin’?” Hyojong teases, his fingers drumming along the skin of her shoulders. “Maybe ‘Red’ ain’t the right nickname for you after all. Maybe we should call you ‘Princess’ if yer’ so used to frilly shit.” 

“Shut up!” Hyuna laughs, elbowing him hard in the ribs. “You know that ain’t what I meant!”

Hyojong feels a smirk tug at the corners of his lips, and this time, he allows it to flourish. She starts to turn, perhaps wanting to face him to shove her hand into his shoulder teasingly or tell him to truly fuck off, but she hasn’t the chance before Hyojong’s fingers delve down to her waist. Even through the fabric of the towel, his fingertips are relentless against her hips, her sides, even the flat plane of her stomach. She doubles over at the sudden sensation, water sloshing out of the plastic container until it clatters out of her grip entirely. One of her hands lifts to grip at the side of the counter while the other swats at Hyojong’s hands, her high-pitched cackle echoing through the motel. She shrieks when Hyojong tickles a sensitive spot along her waist, her knees threatening to buckle and her entire body writhing to get out of his grip. But he is merciless. She has tears in her eyes and they trail down her cheeks, her dimples catching one. She has a new kind of pink to accompany the sickly one she scrubbed into herself - her cheeks and chest are splotchy with the warmth that comes with laughing far too much for her muscles to keep up with. He stops when he can hear her begin to pant, little hums cracking through her laughter that could be drunken winces of pain.

Hyuna smacks him fully on the shoulder this time, Hyojong’s bare skin taking the entire abuse of her palm. Her fingers whip him and it stings and he pays it no mind. She still shakes with residual giggles as she rights herself. She’s in the process of beginning to cuss him out when she feels the slip of her towel's edge at her hips.

Words die on her tongue as she thumbs at the fabric dumbly. She's completely exposed, her entire torso uncovered and washed in the damp air of their shared space. A part of her - the part that her mother instilled, probably - shouts for her to grab at the scratchy towel and yank it over her chest as if she hasn’t already acted on shameless impulse once today. Hyojong makes no effort to avert his gaze, just the same as he did when she popped out of the shower just because, and Hyuna feels her abused cheeks heat up with something new.

Hyuna has never been a shy woman. As a child, she was often punished for being too rambunctious and her mother put her on medication to try and alleviate whatever made her act so boisterous. But it wasn’t until her mother shoved her out of the house and she saw the fatigue of her aunt come from the loudness that she was so well known for that she began to fade into silence.

Those nights where she could hear her mother shout through the speaker on her aunt’s landline even though she could tell the woman had it pressed as tightly to her ear as she could to smother the sound. Moments where her beloved auntie smiled that exhausted grin through every hardship high school brought her until Hyuna stopped telling her stories of them. When Hyuna could smell her mother’s perfume against the couch cushions and her aunt cooked supper in silence instead of cracking her usual imo jokes over simmering soups and noodles. 

Hyuna fucking hated the silence and she refuses to bring it here. Not with these two. Not after everything. 

Her fingertips loosen around the fabric until she feels it slip from her skin entirely. The damp towel pools at her feet and she watches Hyojong’s adam’s apple bob. He’s mastered a poker face, that much is certain. He doesn’t touch her, but she can see him chew on the inside of his bottom lip and hear his breath stutter. Hyuna knows she’s a skinny thing, probably too much so - running a barbershop amidst the impoverished was not a good business choice, and because of this she worked long hours with little to feed herself with. She can feel her ribs press into her stomach with each breath she takes - could he feel her bones cling to her skin while he tickled her?

Almost shyly, Hyojong’s gaze flickers up to meet Hyuna’s eyes. His eyebrow twitches. Hyuna is beginning to realize that Hyojong speaks just as much with his eyes as he does his mouth. Maybe this is on purpose. She smiles, a meek little smirk that is probably more childlike than sexy, but she plants her hands onto the counter and arches her back slightly in invitation anyways. 

That’s as good of permission as any for them both. Hyojong reaches forward slowly, the pads of his index and middle fingers pressing between her collarbones. Slowly, he runs them down her sternum, between her breasts and down the dip where her ribs give. Hyuna exhales slowly, fingers tightening around the counter’s lip impatiently.

“God,” Hyojong breathes, the knuckle of his index circling her navel. “You look real good, Red,”

“What happened to ‘Princess’?” Hyuna asks, her head tilting to the side by a degree.

Hyojong smirks and huffs a laugh. His eyes are tense around the corners. Hyuna lifts a hand, palm cupping his jaw and thumb smoothing at the wrinkles laying in the far edge of his eye. He dares to look up again, meeting her gaze, his pupils dilating ever so slightly. It makes him look hungry. Hyuna’s lips press together, fighting to ignore the stir in her belly.

“I'll call ya' Princess all fuckin' day if ya' want me to,” He murmurs. It’s more of a promise than a threat. Hyuna’s tongue peeks out from between her lips, her mouth suddenly going dry. 

“I’m sure you’d do other things I want, too.”

Hyuna lets this sit between them for a moment, before her thumb stills against his temple.

“Wouldn’t you?”

His shoulders heave with a heavy exhale. On cue, Hyojong steps closer. He buries his face in the edge of her jaw, nuzzling there to lave his tongue against now-chilled skin. He drags his teeth along her throat in silent warning and Hyuna braces herself against him, her free hand coming from the edge of cheap granite to grab at him. She doesn’t care where her hand lands - she just needs something to hold onto, something of Hyojong’s to touch. Hyuna hates the sound of her voice and yet she whines into the open air, her lips close to Hyojong’s ear. She swears he growls in response. 

“Yeah,” Hyojong murmurs, his lips fluttering against her skin, “I would.”

His hand flattens against her stomach, unmoving, and the other rests in a tight fist against the cold counter. It seems they both need something to keep them from floating away. Suddenly their motel feels too small, the air is too thick, and they leech it like they’re starving for its humidity. Hyojong is taller than her by inches, and yet he bends himself in half to lick down her neck and suck on her collarbones. She’s too thin - Hyojong makes a mental note to tell Hwitaek to feed her good while they’re all still together. He sucks and bites hard enough to bruise, he’s sure, but the breathy noises she’s making are far from complaining. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders, one of them trailing restlessly up into his hair while he continues kissing down her chest. His hand cramps from how hard he’s clenching it - he flexes his fingers impatiently before resting his palm against the small of her back for reprieve, sandwiching her abdomen between his hands as he works. It feels awkward and he doesn’t care. He just needs to touch her.

Hyojong doesn’t dare touch her breasts without permission. Hell, he barely feels right doing this without the verbal “ok” - he knows he’s an asshole, but he’s no monster. He kisses down her abdomen, going so far as to sink to his knees to truly worship her. Hyojong has no idea what he’s doing, but the feeling of her against his lips is enough to drive him further, even if it’s blind.

“Christ, baby,” Hyojong growls. He doesn’t know why he’s breathing heavy, but he is, and from what he can hear that Hyuna isn’t any better off. “You ain’t got any idea.”

Hyuna makes a small curious noise, apparently wound up to muteness.

“You drive me fuckin’ crazy,” Hyojong admits against her skin. Her sinks his teeth into the flesh of her belly and he can feel her muscles tense beneath. She makes a cute little noise, a kind of _“a-ah,_ ” and he wants to milk louder out of her.

God, he’s already getting stupid, talking like this. He’s half-hard in his jeans, he can feel it, and he’s thankful for his blind decision to give into her from this low vantage point. He can hide his erection easily and care for her before going on their merry way. Before that, however, he rests his forehead to her ribs, his dishevelled hair probably tickling her collarbones and tries to catch his breath.

Hyojong can feel Hyuna’s confusion, but it’s quickly replaced with understanding. The hand in his hair pets affectionately as he cools down. He needs a clear head to think and motel soap has never smelled better than it does off of Hyuna’s skin. It feels like his head is full of steel wool and he doesn’t trust himself to treat her right without a clear mind. Hyojong counts backwards from 50, waiting for the room to stop spinning until he lifts his chin to meet her gaze. Hyuna is looking down at him before he even looks her way, curiously watching him in anticipation for his next move. 

Awkwardly, Hyojong moves his hands to her hips, squeezing suggestively. Hyuna raises an eyebrow, and the silence continues until Hyojong breaks it.

“On the counter,” He instructs, licking his lips to try and relieve the dryness. “I’ll go down on you.” 

“Ain’t I supposed to be the one suggestin’ that to you?” Hyuna asks, a lopsided smile pushing to her cheeks. Hyojong can tell she’s surprised at the suggestion without saying it - her doe-eyes widen in genuine shock ever so slightly.

“What, why?” Hyojong asks. Hyuna purses her lips and says nothing. Hyojong understands, of course, but he plays dumb with a smile anyway. “Nah, I ain’t selfish like that,”

Hyojong stands, hands sliding down to her thighs as he assists her onto the counter. She squeaks at the motion, her smile widening into a grin as her hand teases his dark roots. He leans close, close enough to kiss her, eyes lidded and cock heavy in his jeans.

“Besides… What’s the point of makin’ you suck my dick if I ain’t got it in me to make you cum, huh?”

Hyuna’s eyebrows press together and a weak little sound slips through her lips. She gets wound up fast - good to know. Hyuna’s legs wrap comfortably around Hyojong’s hips, his hand skirting about her thighs teasingly. She’s got blooming lovebites on her neck, a bright purple one nearly shouting out against her skin on her collarbone. Hyojong grunts at the sight of them, finally dipping his fingers between her legs.

She isn’t clean-shaven but Hyojong doesn’t care. She’s got a pretty cunt, he can tell just from the feel of her, and Hyuna flinches when his index finger pushes between lips and finds where she’s most sensitive. Her mouth opens into a soft “o” and Hyojong can tell she’s fighting to stay quiet. He’s unsure why, he can’t give a damn about Hwitaek walking in and they hear others have sex in neighboring rooms every night, but she makes minimal noise. Hyojong teases her clit, running the tip of his finger up and down the wet length of it in an attempt to coax something out of her. Eventually, she grunts, gritting her teeth together in an almost pained way and pushing her hips forward impatiently. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Hyuna whines, her eyes lidded and glazed over. “Stop fuckin’ teasing me, I don’t wanna be loud,”

 

“Hwitaek?” Hyojong asks, raising an eyebrow as he slips his index finger inside of her. His thumb carries on teasing her, while he makes slow work exploring her cunt with his pointer. His eyes threaten to roll back just from the feel of her - wet, hot, perfect. His cock throbs pathetically and he ignores it, more interested in the way her lids flutter and the complaints wedge in her throat. 

“I- um-mmm… no,” Hyuna stutters, eyebrows pinching together as she rolls her hips forward again, looking for anything more than Hyojong is giving her. His free hand grabs her hip, holding her still as he takes his sweet damn time. She glares, but it’s weak - Hyuna is more jelly than person right now and they both know it. Her voice is breathy as a whole, but she nearly moans out what she says as Hyojong fiddles with her G-spot. 

“I’on give a d-d-aaaah…m ‘bout… Hui comin’ in right now…” 

Hyojong laughs once, sparing a look down at his handiwork. The sight of his hand between her legs is enough to make his hips twitch closer to her. He grunts through clenched teeth, his expression caving in on itself, flickering from amused to desperate in the blink of an eye. Even her trimmed black pubic hair is pretty. Hyojong’s forehead comes to rest on her shoulder as he adds his middle finger to her heat. Hyuna’s thighs tighten around his hips, pulling him closer as he begins to truly finger her in earnest. Her fingers find way into his hair, gripping his locks at the root. He ignores the pleasurable sting of them tightening against his scalp, her breath beginning to come to her in pants.

“Yer’ bein’ quiet on purpose,” Hyojong mutters, hoping that she can hear him as he pieces her thoughts together. He truly is curious despite the compromising situation they found themselves in. “Ain’t it ‘cause of him?”

“F-fuck no,” Hyuna sighs. Her head lolls back in invitation, and Hyojong doesn’t disappoint. “I… I want you, I just ain’t- ah, _fuck_ , fuck it, I want both of you,”

The hand on Hyuna’s hip tightens. Hyuna’s sure it’ll bruise - she wants it to. She can feel Hyojong’s smug smile against her throat and if she weren’t so gelatinous she’d smack it off his pretty face. Instead of commenting, his thumb presses harder, making Hyuna tense around him. Hyojong turns to press his lips into her ear, sucking at her lobe and grazing his teeth along the shell of cartilage.

“C’mon,” Hyojong encourages, his fingers becoming increasingly rough, voice deep and gravelly in a way she could drown in. Hyuna is sure it’s going to drive her insane. “Be loud, Reddy. Give him a show. You can do it,” 

Hyuna wishes he had a shirt as soon as she feels her nails rake down his back. She pulls him closer, both hands now abusing him in some way, desperation taking over. Hyuna is not an exhibitionist - at least, she thought she wasn’t. But thinking about Hwitaek in the bathroom, listening through the door while Hyojong brings her up high, or even walking out to watch… Hyuna keens, back arching, their bare chests flush against one another.

However, old habits die hard, and Hyuna finds herself gnawing on her lips to muffle her own noise. Hyojong's free hand lifts to her mouth, index and middle finger tapping against the abused skin of her bottom lip. Hyuna doesn't hesitate, hungrily opening her mouth and leaning forward to suck on his fingers, the taste of tobacco and antibacterial soap making her whine. It's not an enjoyable flavor, but off of his skin, Hyuna basks in it. Hyojong knows his resolve won't last like this, however, and he wriggles out of her grip to drop to his knees again, his fingers abandoning the delicious heat of her mouth with a lewd pop. He maneuvers himself easily without removing his fingers from her cunt, and she watches him disappear between her legs with a glassy gaze. He lifts her thigh onto his shoulder easily, further exposing her sweetest spots. Hyuna watches the foreign pink of his tongue brush over her, his fingers slowing to match, and every muscle in her body goes rigid. He touches her as if she’s made of china and it’s as irritating as it is arousing. She almost fully moans, but not quite - still, it’s impossible that Hwitaek didn’t hear. Hyojong grins against her skin and splays a hand against her stomach, feeling each muscle twitch and flex.

She tastes tart like fruit and deep like wine in a way that is so very _Hyuna_ \- she has a beautiful balance that Hyojong is sure he can get drunk off of. He’s always favored giving versus receiving, mostly because the idea of teeth near his dick is the only thing that can make him feel truly fearful, but he’s sure that eating Hyuna out for hours wouldn’t be a problem if she wanted him to. He could die here, he’s certain, buried between her legs.

Neither of them have enough attention to spare to hear the creak of the bathroom door open. They’re creating a symphony of their own. Hwitaek stares, towel low on his hips and hair dripping. Hyuna sees him after a few long moments, too enraptured in the feeling of Hyojong low on her body to pull her attention away immediately. She meets his gaze hungrily - she feels dirtier than she ever has and she can feel Hwitaek basking in it. He’s red from the heat of his shower (both of them are surprised there was any hot water left) and Hyuna lets her eyes trail down his figure. He’s skinny, nearly frail-looking, but with a generous layer of muscle beneath his skin. He’s got scars on top of scars, a thin layer of small cuts and burns littering his skin, some of them still fresh, a loud angry pink against porcelain white.

True to her fresh streak of bravery, Hyuna reaches a hand forward, an almost bratty whine accompanying a loose grabby hand. Hwitaek doesn’t hesitate. He approaches her without reservation, finally breaking eye contact to glance down at Hyojong’s handiwork. His mouth is entirely invisible, his cheeks fluttering as he licks and sucks. Hyojong glances up at the newcomer, his pupils blown out and contrasting his mop of bleached hair beautifully. Hwitaek makes a weak noise, something between a groan and a whine, and Hyuna’s hips grind forward.

“ _Hui_ ,” She keens, her back arching and chest pressing in his direction. “Pl-lea _se_ ,”

Hwitaek is pretty sure he left his brain back in the bathtub. He stares at her breasts, finally appreciating what he couldn’t earlier, and opens his mouth numbly to ask what she wants from him. No noise comes out - it seemingly can’t. After a few more moments, Hyuna’s breathy winces of frustration pull him out of his reverie.

“Can I…?” He asks, his hand lifting to ghost over the curve of her breast. She growls - swear to God, growls - and pushes forward into his palm. 

“Please!” She repeats. Hyuna’s breasts aren’t sensitive, but she’ll be damned if Hwitaek doesn’t touch her before she cums. 

Hwitaek complies, ignoring his short-circuiting mind. He can figure out what kind of mess this will create later. His calloused palms smooth over her skin, the pads of his fingers teasing her nipples and trailing down her sternum. She’s burning up and he wonders if her skin felt like this last night in the bar.

“God, Red,” Hwitaek murmurs. Hyuna’s hip cants against Hyojong’s mouth, and it’s just then when Hwitaek notices he’s got three fingers in her.

“No, no, _shit_ , say my name,” Hyuna begs. She looks up at him, eyes so glossy he’s surprised she doesn’t have tears on her cheeks. If any look could make him crumble, it would be that one. Hwitaek gulps, releasing her gaze to watch her hips roll.

“ _Hyuna_ ,” He murmurs, and the sound of her teeth grinding is palpable. Hyuna’s head falls back against the filthy motel wall and she makes a pathetic little noise between her clenched jaw. Hyojong watches her with the same gaze a hunting predator would have. Hwitaek wonders if his gaze burns.

She doesn’t say whether or not it feels good; she shows it. She writhes, hips bucking against Hyojong’s lips and his fingers digging deeper into her. His fingers are far enough into the last knuckle, his tendons flexing as he presses her G-spot. Her hand moves from Hyojong’s crown to Hwitaek’s arm, yanking him closer, burying her face in the crook of his neck and shoulder. She presses hot kisses along the edge of his collarbones, her tongue flattening against his skin. He tastes like soap, no hits of cologne against him yet, and Hyuna briefly mourns for it.

She can feel that familiar heat pooling in her gut. The fingers in Hyojong’s hair tighten in warning, and as she opens her mouth to warn him, Hyojong moans at the burn of her fingers and words die in her throat. Hwitaek’s hands run up her sides, palming her breasts, and he even feels inclined to scratch down her ribs and belly. Hyuna leans into the sensation, grinning up at him drunkenly.

Hyuna cums with a blind smile on her face, lips parted in a grin and mouth open in mute cries. Hyojong fucks her through it and Hwitaek holds her as she shakes, her breath stuttering and hips bucking. Eventually, her thighs tighten around Hyojong’s head hard enough for him to expect his brain to leak through his ears, and it’s with another hard shudder before she flinches, suddenly falling back against the wall numbly. Hyuna is boneless, slumped against the brown wallpaper, eyes briefly rolled back behind her lids. Hwitaek hurries to help her stay upright.

Hyojong finally slips his fingers out of Hyuna, lapping at the moisture that collected along his knuckles. He doesn’t do it for the theatrics - he grapples to any taste of her just for the pleasure of it. His jaw aches and his scalp burns and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Hyuna pries an eye open as he finishes cleaning his ring finger, his other digits bare and spit-slick. She can feel a crooked smile crawl onto her expression. Chest still heaving, a slightly shaky hand reaches for Hyojong, cupping his cheek as he leans against her thigh. He looks just as wrecked as she feels; his mouth is wet and red, lids heavy above wide pupils, his jaw working from side-to-side momentarily to readjust it in its socket. Hyuna feels a pang of guilt. Poor thing must be hurting in fifty places from the way she was treating him. Leaning forward (with assistance from a still-starstruck Hwitaek), Hyuna bends forward, tongue sweeping along his lips to clean any residual fluid. Hyojong stills and his eyelids flutter at the sensation. It's the closest thing to kissing they've ever done. She hums at the taste, smile widening at the sensuality of it.

“Your turn,” Hyuna murmurs, her voice small and slightly hoarse. With a tut, Hyojong bats the hand off his cheek. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Hyojong says, suddenly standing with a grunt. He presses forward, hands going to either side of her hips as he noses along her neck, admiring the lovebites of all colors trailing there. “What’d I say, huh? I ain’t shit if I do this shit for you ‘nd expect somethin’ in return. Jus’ keep bein’ precious ‘nd we’ll call it even,”

“Mm, smooth,” Hyuna slurs, grinning.

With a bit of reservation, Hyuna glances to Hwitaek, tilting her head to the side in offering for Hyojong to nip at. Hwitaek is obviously hard - his erection is outlined through the white towel - and Hyuna smiles her very childish and un-sexy smirk.

“Whatta’ ‘bout you, hm?” Hyuna asks, her hand trailing up his arm from where his hand still lays against the small of her back.

“He ain’t shit for it, either,” Hyojong murmurs. It’s loud enough for Hwitaek to hear, not that he aimed to hide his shit talk from the other.

“Sorry for wantin’ in on whatever you fuckers started,” Hwitaek grumbles, finally speaking more than two words since leaving the bathroom. “I ain’t takin’ advantage of nothin’. No reason to talk shit, Brainless." 

The spell of their sexcapade hasn't broken yet, but with how suddenly cuddly the other two have gotten, Hwitaek feels awkwardly imposing. Hiss touch falls away from Hyuna's skin as he walks across the motel, heaving his assigned duffel onto the mattress and effectively rummaging through his suddenly limited wardrobe. There were three color-coordinated bags; Hyuna wanted red, of course, and Hyojong settled for camo, so Hyojong took the only color left, which was a gaudy shade of bright blue. Hwitaek suddenly found his tiny span of clothing fascinating, his back kept to the other two as he focuses on the feeling of silky fabric to avoid mentally re-playing Hyuna’s face mid-orgasm.

The only true sound aside from breathing becomes Hwitaek rummaging for clean clothes. Eventually, he finds the appropriate attire, a black silken button-up and ripped blue jeans, and he dresses while Hyuna and Hyojong take their sweet time wallowing in fluffy silence. They cradle each other like lovers, Hyuna’s head scratching lovingly at Hyojong’s scalp (perhaps massaging out remnants of her abuse) while his forehead rests on her shoulder, fingers trailing across the length of her thigh. It’s the same motion that he used to usher Hyuna to sleep last night. Hwitaek hates himself for feeling spiteful.

“Alright lovebirds, I hate to be the one to rip ya’ apart but we got places to be,” Hwitaek announces the seventh minute into their standoff. Hyuna pouts but Hyojong pulls away, his head lifting and jerking to the side, sickening cracks pulling from the action.

“Need help?” Hyojong asks, hands sliding up to Hyuna’s hips as she begins to slide down the counter. She shakes her head stubbornly before a large bit of her backside catches on the buffed granite, producing a sick squeaking sound as she slips to the floor. Everyone in the motel cringes and Hyuna blinks.

“Christ, Red,” Hyojong is trying to hide a smile.

Hyuna cackles loudly, obviously pained and limping. Hyojong smiles despite his complaints and rubs at the meat of her buttocks to soothe the irritated skin. She grins at the contact, still riding the endorphins of her orgasm. Hwitaek pointedly decides not to think about it.

An hour and many complaints from Hyuna later, the three of them are fully clothed and checked out of the motel, pulling back onto the dusty freeway. Hyuna’s skirt flutters with the wind from the open window and her dried bun is bigger than Hwitaek’s fist. The sun has set hours ago and Hyuna wears her sunglasses anyway. They’re are round and adorable against her soft features. Hwitaek drives in silence, determined to blame his headache on the lack of coffee from Hyuna and Hyojong’s antics. In the heat of the moment, they forgot to turn the damn machine on, and Hwitaek hopes he can stop himself from snapping at his comrades until they find a gas station that sells something caffeinated and lukewarm, _at least_. Hyojong is sprawled across the backseat, using his bunched-up cow print jacket as a pillow as he drums his fingers against his chest in time with the only tunes that the radio can find. It’s mostly static, but Hyojong thinks he can hear a saxophone if he listens hard enough.

The stars are beautiful but Hwitaek still finds himself carding sideways glances. Hyuna always takes priority, he supposes. None of them have spoken about this afternoon’s events and it seems that they all intend to keep it that way. It makes sense, really - none of them talk about anything that could rupture their comfortable bubble. They know nothing about each other besides their names and drinking preferences, and now the two boys know what Hyuna looks like when she cums. Hyojong knows what she tastes like. Hwitaek knows how her glassy eyes glitter against the pulse of blacklight. They know nothing about where Hwitaek is taking them, just that he’s taking them there. They know Hyojong can speak English. They know Hyuna wants to see Vegas and - even though no words have been exchanged - that the boys want more than anything to take her there.

It’s all in undisturbed quiet.

It’s all relative, small, simple. It’s collecting scraps of information for later use, if they truly have to pull each other’s details into the open. Hwitaek wonders if he’ll ever know Hyuna’s childhood pets or her favorite foreign dish. It’s foolish to wish for it, of course, and he couldn’t give less of a fuck about those things regarding Hyojong. Truthfully, the only reason he hasn’t kicked the useless bastard to the curb to die is because he knows Hyuna’d never stand for it. He’d end up alone again while the two of them fend for themselves, and he’d never be able to live with himself if he knew he did Hyuna a day wrong.

“Hui, honey?”

Hwitaek glances to the passenger seat. Hyuna is looking at him through those shades, the corners of her lips turned down and eyebrows pressed together. 

“Yeah?” 

“You okay?”

He blinks, readjusting his gaze back to the road. There are no streetlights here, just them and the stars, and he wonders if she can even see his face through the damn glasses. Probably not well, and even still, she reads him as easily as she does in cloudless daylight. Her attentiveness to their shifts in mood is beginning to get fucking annoying.

“‘Course I am,” Hwitaek says, his wrist draping across the steering wheel. His other arm leans against the open windowsill, fingers teasing the wind. Hyuna doesn’t look convinced but she nods anyway. Hwitaek tuts, smirking. “You’re a nosy one, ain’t ya’?”

She bristles a bit at that, shifting in her seat before responding. 

“I ain’t nosy, just makin’ sure. Sorry for asking,”

“Aish, you know it’s alright. I’m just teasin’. Worry ‘bout yourself, you don’t need to babysit me,”

“I ain’t babysittin’ either,” Hyuna says, resting her chin in the palm of her hand while she gazes at the dust out the open window. It’s dreadfully boring. Hwitaek figures she’s just looking anywhere but at him. “I just care, ‘s all.” 

Oh. Hwitaek takes a turn shifting in his seat, scooting back further until his tailbone is flush against the faux leather of the back.

There’s nothing he can say in response to that, so he stays silent. It’s a full minute of panic before he settles on risking his hand off the wheel, allowing the car to fend for itself as he places a hand on her knee. He squeezes, probably hard enough to turn his knuckles white, and she lets him. She doesn’t turn at the touch nor does she ask him to stop. His lips press into a fine line and he considers saying something to lighten her mood. There’s a reason his brothers always took control of the verbal aspects of their business. His touch lasts a few seconds before his hand drops to the center console, fingers slowly making its way back to the steering wheel.

It’s cheesy and downright cliche to feel a stir from such a simple admittance. She’s a goddamn stranger in a car he stole with money that isn’t his. They’re in the middle of nowhere and he has nowhere to go home to. Nothing is planned out. They have no outline or schedule. They’re running from phantom people who see them as hideous criminals, because that’s what they are.

They’ve been going in random directions for the past 48 hours. Hwitaek has no end goal in mind, he has no Plan B or alternative route. He takes him where his instincts say and it almost feels as though his instincts have begun to go quiet. 

What will he do when he runs out of ideas; when they run until all the roads that they haven’t taken lead back to that damn city they all abandoned?

Hwitaek gulps and hopes Hyuna doesn’t hear. Honestly, the two of them trust him far too much, and he’s unsure if he can perform with what they silently give. Hell, he may have already abused it by not driving them straight to the goddamn airport and buying a one-way ticket to Bumfuck Nowhere. Maybe they’ve stayed in the country too long and, just by being a coward, he risks Hyuna’s - fuck it, all of their - safety.

The others never ask where he takes them. They sit willingly while he drives. He does so until he’s tired and they’re satisfied with that. Right now, they drive away from Seoul without question where he takes them. Hwitaek doesn’t know what to do with his guilt. Almost impulsively, he promises in their silence that wherever he does next, they won’t be caught.

They will never be caught.

He promises that. Fuck, he’s known these people for two days, but he promises that he’ll never let them go down because of his own doing. They’ll never be caught from his hand. He promises he’ll always keep the tank over half full. He’ll get coffees for all three of them, even if both of his passengers are asleep. He’ll buy lollipops and taffies to keep them occupied while he drives. He’ll even take the responsibility of buying condoms if they decide to take the whole sex thing further.

Hwitaek glances at the sky. The stars are vivid against the plum night. He makes each vow on a different star, putting each small gesture into existence even when they live millions of miles away. They may even be dying, but he can still see them, and that’s good enough. He tries not to focus on how some stars are brighter or redder or smaller than others, because that really shouldn’t be goddamn important, but it is. He looks for blue stars that twinkle and promises on them.

But he looks for a bright one, one that may even be a planet or a sun itself, something that may hold life and answers and something beyond the imagination of their species, before promising silently with such intensity that it makes his throat feel swollen in panic.

Hwitaek promises, even if it means soothing her through the loss of Spunk or finding out the ugliest things about her past, or dragging her away from something they both want - fuck it, even if it means putting himself and the others up against all of the fucking bullshit that is after them - that he won’t ever let Hyuna be taken away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk to me im very lonely::  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyyuphey)  
> [tumblr](https://heyyuphey.tumblr.com/)


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